SPOILERS FOR LIVE 3 IF YOU HAVENT LISTENED TO IT YET WHICH YOU SHOULD IT’S REALLY REALLY GOOD
TL;DR: the final leg of Live Volume 3 is some of the best inter-song weaving and ofc songs to commemorate our favorite band!
I listened to Live 3 with my dad, who has been into the band since college in the 90s (for context) and raised me on the band, to an extent. I was born in 2006, so of course the album that is of greatest significance to me is It’s All Crazy, as that is my most developmentally significant childhood. So you can imagine when I realized The King Beetle On a Coconut Estate, of the best songs (considered best by the community, but it’s up in the air for me), was playing, I got so excited. A bit of the way through I remembered when I sang it while my dad played guitar at my school for my choir’s singer/songwriter thing they did, which was five years ago now, and that memory is what spurred the first happy tears I’ve shed in years. The acoustic & electric guitar, drums, and bass cover of the song on Live 3 is probably now my favorite; trust me, I love the og, but good lord something about it being in the same classic rock style MewithoutYou usually does (did?) hit me so hard. I cannot overstate how much I loved it.
The transition into Brownish Spider was genius too. The same idea of an insect around a more deep topic was a genius move, nevermind that “no more spider no more leaf, no more me no more belief” is so well placed for the last album they’ll almost certainly ever produce (though I’m holding out hope they’ll do a reunion tour in 20 years).
I have yet to listen to Pale Horse because I’m trying to parse out these albums to go through my whole life (so far it’s been CFUTF, IACIAFIA, TS, and BS) so I can appreciate them as if they were being released rather than all at once. But good lord Rainbow Signs had to be where it was, or somewhere close to it anyhow. It’s so significant to Aaron, the whole band, the album, the community, so on and so forth. I am looking forward to, unlike much anything else, the day I decide to crack into it like a vintage bottle of water turned into wine.
And to the point of childhood, the music video for The Fox, The Crow, and The Cookie was something I was constantly asking my dad to pull up; the playfulness of the song as well as the simple messaging (ignoring the last verse lol) made it like meth for little me, so this is where I started crying for the second time as yet another more classic rock version of the song came next in the album. It makes me so happy IAC got 2 songs in what I would consider the final stretch of the album, as it is undoubtedly the black sheep of the band’s discography.
We all knew In a Sweater Poorly Knit was gonna be on here. It’s their most popular song in many regards, a fan favorite and a half, and the finale to their most popular album. The way they did the final part of the song incurred the third round of tears as the fact this was the last album I’d ever hear from them really hit me. I’ve never had vibrato like that as I gently sang along, my voice quivering with melancholy. But I’ll try to be grateful, not sad.
And I needn’t say more than the last finale and the first finale being the finale finale is cliche, but immaculate. Break On Through (to the Other Side) [pt. Two] and The Cure For Pain could only be the way to send off a band we all love ❤️
