Less Than Jake + Rocks Off Cruise = OMFG AMAZING - Sometimes, and by sometimes i mean rarely, we get to do cool stuff because people see the hours of work we put into this rinky-dink website of ours. And for that we are always eternally grateful. Last Thursday was one of those rare occasions. Us DAPS kids got a chance to see Less Than Jake on a BOAT!

Sometimes, and by sometimes I mean rarely, we get to do cool stuff because people see the hours of work we put into this rinky-dink website of ours. And for that we are always eternally grateful. Last Thursday was one of those rare occasions.

Thanks to the fine people with the Rocks Off Concert Cruises and Reybee Productions, we were able to do something that was THIS FUCKING AWESOME:

Awesomeness defined.

That’s right kids; We were attending one of those nifty NYC concert cruises we’ve been hearing so much about lately. You can, and should, look further into the upcoming events that Rocks Off has scheduled because, as you’ll read in this post, they’re really really worth it.

Now, if you look closely at the bottom left of the above photo you can see the side profile of Chris Demakes peeking through the crowd. Chris, for those of you who aren’t in the know, is the lead singer of my all time favorite band Less Than Jake. Most widely known for their minor radio hit “The Science of Selling Yourself Short“, LTJ (as I’ll refer to them from here on out), have toured with everyone from Blink 182 to Fall Out Boy and are veterans of the Van’s Warped Tour. Basically, if you didn’t know who they were before… now you know and should go directly to iTunes (after reading this and looking at all of the pretty photos of course!)

Anyways, back to the matter at hand, the crazy-ass concert cruise. After boarding with photographer extraordinaire David Giordano, iPhone wizard Craig Caruso, and a pair of Avon Junkies (Adam Tilzer and Stefanie Azzarelli) my group and I needed a moment to take in the atmosphere. Prior to this show I had only read Carlo’s description of the Rocks Off Cruise line, so as you might expect I was greatly unprepared loljkjk.

(Clockwise: Stefanie Azzarelli, Adam Tilzer, David Giordano, and Chris Olivieri) Photo by Craig Caruso.

But seriously, it seemed like it was going to be one of those intimate shows where you feel really connected with the band and then get all tingly inside. As it turns out, I was a moron mistaken. The boat took a little while to fill to capacity, but when it did the buzz was comparable to any show at larger NYC venues like Bowery Ballroom or Irving Plaza. The Temptress, the ship that this particular show was on, was actually very comfortable and didn’t rock as much as one might expect.  As the passengers filed onto the gang plank, Dave and I grabbed some drinks; Adam, Stef and Craig grabbed some mini-meatballs (which I hear were very tasty) and then we searched for a spot appropriate for Adam who is apparently 9 feet tall.

Just as the opening band was about to start we received a text from Rey Roldan of Reybee Productions, who was instrumental in our being on the boat in the first place. Having become obsessed with his Twitter account (which is equal parts music news and Sarah Palin bashing) we all really needed to see what this guy was all about thank him very much for his help making this post happen.

DAPS and Avon Junkies with the Reybee peeps.

I must tell you, Rey and all of the Reybee people were some of the coolest, most down to earth industry types I’ve encountered in my short time as a website editor. On top of being both professional and courteous, the Reybee folk were all very funny, interesting, and most importantly willing to hang out with us for just about the entire show. Which I’m getting to next, I promise!

Anyways, while we were talking to Rey & crew we had to pause a moment because Adam was carrying an old Less Than Jake EP that was handed to him at Warped Tour wayyy back in 1997.  The disc had been signed by every member of the band except (ironically) the member who handed it to him, singer Chris Demakes. Against some harsh odds, Chris walked directly past us on the back of the ship. You better believe we stopped him asked Rey nicely if he could stop him to grab that elusive signature.

Chris signs Adam's old LTJ EP and the girl on the right was really happy about it.

After Bullshitting with the Reybee folk and having snagged our Less Than Jake signature, we made our way inside realizing that we had missed the opening band’s entire set. Oh well ::shrugs:: It was about then when Dave insanely bravely made his way to the front of the crowd, which was starting to get antsy waiting for Less Than Jake to go on. If you’ve ever seen a crowd going nuts for Glassjaw, imagine that only 10x more energy. That’s when the LTJ guys took the stage, and insanity and “USA” chants ensued.

Now because there’s no way you want to read more than you already have, I’ll give you the rest of the 411 in bullet points.

• Less Than Jake announced a new EP which will be released at the beginning of next year, and a tour which will coincide with it’s release.
• Dave got his camera splashed by beer and uppercut while somehow managing to get stuck in a mosh pit.
• The crowd on this boat was a-fucking-mazing, as you could probably tell from the photos below.
• Of course I made sure that I was part of that crowd for a little while.
• Craig shot a bunch of video, here’s one he got of “The Ghosts of You and Me“
• This might have been the best Less Than Jake show I’ve ever been to, seriously.
• We were invited downstairs on the boat, which doubled as a backstage area, where we met the band who were also very cool guys.
• Months of twitter tension was relieved as we finally managed to get a meeting between @LessThanJr and @Avonjunkies.
• We got to check out the after party at the crazy high class bowling alley where I had to take off my Mets hat.
• Dave, Craig and I grabbed Chicken and Rice after the show.

All in all it was pretty awesome. As a LTJ fan I was very happy, as a web-producer i was even more happy. Seriously, look at these photos Dave Giordano got.

I can’t believe you guys read this far… but I’m glad you did though. These links are important.

Most importantly, check out the Rocks Off Concert Cruise’s website and buy tickets. You will not be disappointed. Also, go look at what the fine people at Reybee are up to. They’ll appreciate it, and you might just learn something.

Finally, I must thank Dave for taking such awesome photos! See more of Dave’s amazing work over at Freshgrafix.net.