Live In LA: Young Veins Plays First Show at Echo

Those familiar words that open Panic! at the Disco’s last album, Pretty. Odd., have picked up some unintended irony over the past few months: “You don’t have to worry because we’re still the same band.” Not quite.

Not only was the Panic!’s 2008 record a clear departure for the Vegas band – who’d left behind the R&B-infused emo-pop for some baroque Sgt. Pepper’s bluster – but it preceded a departure of a different sort. Members Ryan Ross and Jon Walker went their own way last July, leaving their former group to singer Brendon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith.

What’s more, a simultaneous release of dueling new singles – “New Perspective” by Panic!, and “Change” by the freshly formed Young Veins – revealed a telling detail: While Team Brencer offered a polished take on the old emo sound, RyRo and J-Walk took the Beatles thing and ran with it, effectively splitting the Panic! fan-base down the middle – same band, two ways.

The far more promising way, IMHO, goes by the name Young Veins, and that (sorta) brand new Topanga-based band played its first show together at The Echo over the weekend. Read about it here, via Spin.

The Fab Five faces its fans. (Andrew Herrold)

Those familiar words that open Panic! at the Disco’s last album, Pretty. Odd., have picked up some unintended irony over the past few months: “You don’t have to worry because we’re still the same band.” Not quite.

Not only was the Panic!’s 2008 record a clear departure for the Vegas band – who’d left behind the R&B-infused emo-pop for some baroque Sgt. Pepper’s bluster – but it preceded a departure of a different sort. Members Ryan Ross and Jon Walker went their own way last July, leaving their former group to singer Brendon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith.

What’s more, a simultaneous release of dueling new singles – “New Perspective” by Panic!, and “Change” by the freshly formed Young Veins – revealed a telling detail: While Team Brencer offered a polished take on the old emo sound, RyRo and J-Walk took the Beatles thing and ran with it, effectively splitting the Panic! fan-base down the middle – same band, two ways.