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— by James Montgomery, with additional reporting by David LeClaire
Driving through the Long Island town of Babylon, you're struck by just how appropriate the name is. Glimmering white yachts float in the Great South Bay and gated golf courses cater exclusively to the residents of colonial mansions. But as you get further into town, things quickly change: Suburbia gets strangled out by barren strip malls, Firestone tire centers and TV/VCR repair shacks. And by the time you finally get to Looney Tunes — a tiny record store currently sharing rental space with a Chinese take-out restaurant, a 27-minute photo lab, a nail parlor and a Laundromat — things begin to make sense.
Taking Back Sunday are from Long Island. Most of them grew up in towns exactly like Babylon. Singer Adam Lazzara and guitarist Eddie Reyes delivered food for a nearby deli. Drummer Mark O'Connell worked as a valet, parking Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs for tips. They lived uneventful, unremarkable lives amidst Long Island's jarring mix of home fronts and storefronts, buried beneath the shadows of New York City.
And in that regard, they're exactly like the 700 kids standing in Looney Tunes' parking lot, in a line that stretches the length of the strip mall, beginning at the front door and ending next to a dumpster. It's bored suburbia on parade: 14-year-old girls with raccoon-eye makeup and studded belts talk on their cell phones. Shaggy-haired guys wearing too-tight T-shirts take drags off illicit cigarettes. The stated reason they're here is because Taking Back Sunday are performing an acoustic set and signing some autographs. But there's also an unspoken reason for the mass gathering — these kids need to be here. Taking Back Sunday understand their boredom, their frustration and the general hormonal rollercoaster that is high school ... because they lived it themselves, on these same streets. The music of Taking Back Sunday is these kids' lives.
"It brings you to tears sometimes, because the kids are so in touch with what we're doing," bassist Matt Rubano says. "They really do love it. We get a lot of hefty compliments from kids, for helping them through tough times. It's overwhelming."
The kids in this Long Island parking lot are just a small portion of a vast, slightly depressed army. Bored kids across America looking for something genuine, but seeing only shopping malls on the horizon. They find an emotional outlet in Lazzara's songs of despair and heartbreak. They dissect his words down to the smallest syllable. Taking Back Sunday fans are extremely obsessive: They flood Internet newsgroups with discussions about bandmembers' tattoos, bake them cookies and make pillows for their tour bus. And their loyalty recently translated to big sales — the band's album Where You Want to Be debuted at #3 on the Billboard albums chart.
"It's important for me to have all these kids know that Taking Back Sunday are nothing without them behind us," Lazzara says. "Everything that we've accomplished is because of them. Kids take so much time out of their lives to hang out. There are kids that skip school just to come to [in-store concerts] like this, and they know they won't get in, but they show up just to stand there and look in the window."
Indeed, of the 700 who showed up, only 200 fans are allowed inside Looney Tunes. The rest will do precisely as Lazzara predicted. They press their faces against the store's windows, eyes wide, hoping to catch a glimpse of their hometown heroes. When the band does motion in their direction, they scream loudly, snap photos through the glass and tremble with excitement. Those lucky enough to get inside are packed in between rows of CDs, shot glasses and Cheech and Chong incense burners. The air is heavy with anticipation, and there's an audible buzz that suddenly erupts into wild cheers when Lazzara and guitarist Fred Mascherino take the small stage. Lazzara thanks the crowd for showing up, rolls up the sleeves of his New York Giants hoodie, and begins to sing the opening verse of "A Decade Under the Influence," the first single from Where You Want to Be. By the time he's gotten to the song's chorus, there are 200 kids singing along with him. Two hundred kids with their eyes tightly shut, some rocking back and forth, some with their arms slung low around their girlfriends' waists. All of them chanting the song's refrain: "To hell with you and all your friends."
Lazzara finishes the song, pushes his long hair out of his eyes, and smiles. "That was cool," he laughs. "Thanks guys."
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Photo: Justin Boruki
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