The Anniversary. Metro was far too hot and too full for us to shoot pictures from any closer than this. Sorry. Well, maybe a little closer. Some mad Get Up Kids craziness. Get a load of these zany stage antics.

It was an unseasonably warm October evening as the Heroes & Villains gang show invaded Chicago -- the last stop of its six-week romp across the United States. As anyone who has ever been to Metro will surely attest, unseasonably warm conditions outside generally mean sweltering conditions inside the venue. Tonight’s sold out show proved no different, as the temperature in the club was at least 25 degrees warmer than the rather mild conditions outside. In short, a long, sweaty evening was in store for the Splendid crew.

We arrive slightly late, having forsaken openers Jebediah in favor of a hot meal. We manage to get inside and situated just as Koufax hits the stage.

My initial skepticism about this band is quickly put to rest. The group’s full throttle sonic attack is a far cry from the watered-down retro-pop of their debut album, It Had to do With Love. The band forsakes the record's studio trickery in favor of a bombastic sound that's often reminiscent of Canadian rock gods Sloan or early Who. During their too-brief, set the group tears through viscerally re-vamped versions of "Minor Chords", "Living Alone" and "Out of Your Element" with reckless abandon and plenty of rock star swagger. A semi-inspired cover of Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out" draws blank looks from most of the audience, who are too young to appreciate the irony.

Koufax drummer Dave Shettler, whose manic Keith Moon-styled pummeling was the highlight of the entire show, deserves special mention -- especially for vaulting off his kit at the end of the set.

Koufax prove to be a tough act to follow, but H&V labelmates The Anniversary -- whose Designing a Nervous Breakdown is a candy-coated slice of perfect new-wave inflected pop punk -- decide to give it a whack. Unfortunately, the band do not translate particularly well to a live setting. The sprightly keyboard melodies and three part harmonies that make their album so addictive are mostly lost beneath a sea of feedback and thudding drums. They do, however, manage to squeeze out incredibly energetic versions of “The D in Detroit” and “Vasil & Bluey” before retreating from the stage.

Then the Get Up Kids arrive.

Immediately, ranked masses of boys in horn-rimmed glasses and girls in cardigans bolt forward in order to catch a better view. The band launches into “Holiday”, the opening track from their stellar Something to Write Home About, and the crowd erupts. The entire main floor audience begins ecstatically jumping up and down, screaming every line along with lead singer/guitarist/future Elvis impersonator Matthew Pryor. Some of the kids almost seem to be praying, given the vigor with which they spew every line a second before it falls from Pryor’s mouth, like some weird sort of call and response. But for all the audience’s enthusiasm, the band’s performance kind of falls flat. Sure, they’re loud, and the drums sound good, but overall the band’s sound never really gets anywhere beyond the kids frantically screaming down front. The highlight of their set is an impassioned rendition of “Anne Arbour”, in which Pryor’s cry arcs over somnambulant guitars and a locked-in groove. By far the two most amusing aspects of the set are keyboardist James Dewees’ spastic dancing and the band’s hilarious tale about beating the shit out of a drunken frat boy in Pittsburgh. Perhaps it’s simply due to the road wear but on this night the Get Up Kids just seem a bit boring.

Who needs a drink?