Diehard fans buckle up for ult-emo-te experience

• Behind the wheel with Dashboard ...

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Dashboard Confessional singer Chris Carrabba brings his songbook of intimate and heart-wrenching ruminations about love to the Pipeline Café tonight and tomorrow. Dashboard Confessional with Suspicious Minds (tonight), Olivia (Saturday) 7 p.m. today and Saturday Pipeline Café $20 (877) 750-4400 Tonight's show is sold out.

A fan of punk-folk rockers Dashboard Confessional and its sensitivity-working-overtime lead vocalist Chris Carrabba for going on three years, Keen was simply stoked to discover that the band was returning to Honolulu for a show this weekend. She had missed Dashboard's November 2002 concert at the former World Café while attending college on the Mainland.

"I was so bummed because I had been waiting so long for them to come here and I missed it. ... So I made a post about the Hawai'i show because I was excited out of my pants about it," said Keen, 20, a waitress at Chili's Waikele.

Her post, left on the message boards of the band's official Web site, received a near-immediate response from Hoban, a 26-year-old graphic designer and fellow three-year Dashboard fan from Louisville, Ky.

"He said he was flying from Kentucky to Hawai'i for the show, which I thought was the craziest thing I'd ever heard," said Keen.

The two began discussing their respective Dashboard appreciation via e-mail. Hoban had been to 40 Dashboard shows. Keen had yet to attend a first. Hoban had a friend named Allie, who was driving down to Louisville from Detroit to accompany him to Hawai'i. Keen was going alone.

When Keen found out the duo's plan was to sleep on the beach, sleep outside the show's Pipeline Café venue or find a cheap hotel, she invited them to room with her for their three-day stay this weekend.

"I grew up in a house ... where my mom took in all the stray cats. We sort of left our doors unlocked for everyone," said the North Shore-raised Keen, laughing. "So I kind of turned out the same way."

Sing-along gigs

Devoted fans lining up outside venues in the early a.m. hours just for a prime stage-front spot. Same fans later that evening singing every lyric of every Carrabba composition back to him. Girls (and a few boys) screaming (and sometimes weeping) at the sight, sound and every move of the slight, tattooed, soulful-eyed Carrabba.

Not a whole lot has changed about the Dashboard Confessional concert experience, save for the number of fans showing up for 'em.

Four years of near-constant touring and a growing catalogue of uniquely knowing, often painfully honest, post-adolescent ruminations about love lost and love found have finally taken Dashboard Confessional beyond its indie-emo-band-playing-small-club beginnings to the fringes of arena rock stardom.

A few fans who fell in love with Dashboard via its intimate communal sing-along club gigs have certainly been lost in the transition. More remarkably, though, word-of-mouth about those now long-gone early shows have attracted an even larger audience to the Dashboard Confessional experience.

Released last August, Dashboard Confessional's fourth CD, "A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar,"

debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart. The band's previous studio CD, 2001's "The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most," peaked at No. 108.

After dabbling with arena gigs while on tour last year, Dashboard will headline this summer's annual Honda Civic Tour, playing venues in the 6,000-12,000 seat range.

By comparison, Dashboard's show in Pipeline's more intimate confines will be akin to kicking it with the band old-school style.

Growing fan base

"That's the main reason Allie and I decided to do this trip," said Hoban, phoning from Louisville. "I don't want to sound like we don't appreciate the new stuff. It really is neat to see (Carrabba) up there capturing a whole new audience. But Hawai'i probably is going to be one of the last times to see them like this."

Not that no one in Honolulu is interested. Tonight's Dashboard Pipeline Café gig sold out in two weeks, prompting the band to add a Saturday show. "Hands Down," a single from "A Mark, A Mission," has taken up residency on Star 101.9FM's Top 10 airplay and request charts for the last six months.

"We've played 'Hands Down' more than any other radio station in the entire nation," said station program director Jamie Hyatt, citing national airplay measurements from Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems and Mediabase. "The Dashboard fan base is rare. Obviously, a lot of bands have fan bases, but this is one of those that keeps growing and is very loyal."

Kade has been to more than 40 Dashboard shows, about 15 of them with Hoban, whom she met while waiting in line for a show. The farthest they've traveled for Dashboard shows before Hawai'i is Lowell, Mass., and Montreal for Kade; Los Angeles for Hoban.

Both offered up road stories that included being chatted up by a mentally ill bum with a bloody hand while waiting on line in Chicago, sleeping on a Queens subway platform when a housing invitation fell through in New York, and, yes, actually meeting the band members ... several times.

But asked the main reason they enjoyed traveling to so many Dashboard shows, Hoban and Kade gave similar answers: meeting people just like them.

"So many of the kids we meet (at shows) are our best friends," said Kade. "And really, this is the only time we get together and see each other."

Said Hoban: "The shows have allowed me to make a lot of really good friends that I've kept over the past three years, like Allie. ... More than just going to a show, it's about meeting people that you know, that you haven't seen in so long ... who you have this bond with because of the music, that brings you together."

Both were looking forward to meeting their Honolulu host for the first time.

"I'm really looking forward to that because we have a connection. Plus, she's never been to a show," said Hoban. "So I'm really excited about taking her to her first show and seeing her experience and reaction for the first time."

Keen was planning to meet them with lei at the airport yesterday. The three will be attending both Dashboard Confessional shows this weekend.

"I'm a million times excited about the show, but I'm excited about them coming here because it'll be fun," said Keen, who was planning a whirlwind O'ahu sightseeing tour for her guests. "I'm gonna show them the ropes around Hawai'i. They're going to show me the ropes around the Dashboard show."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8005.

Behind the wheel with Dashboard ...

Here with, a Dashboard Confessional CD primer.

"The Swiss Army Romance" (2000)

Billboard Top 200 peak position: did not chart

Though essentially a Chris Carrabba solo CD, all of the elements that Dashboard would perfect on its next CD — personal, relatable I-feel-your-twisting-pain lyrics — are in full bloom on this debut. A sonic timeline of a single relationship gone sour with all the unflinchingly gory details left intact. Well-written angst, but not for the faint of heart.

Best tracks: "Screaming Infidelities," "Living in Your Letters"

"The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most" (2001)

Peak position: No. 108

More Carrabba heartache about the same girl; infinitely more catchy and a bit more mature. Instead of simply taking a bullet to the heart again, Carrabba fights back with lyrics seething with humorous venom, wicked kiss-offs and as much sweet catharsis as the singer/songwriter allows himself. Emo gets its Morrissey.

Best tracks: "The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most," "Saints and Sailors"

"Dashboard Confessional: MTV Unplugged v2.0" (2002)

Peak position: No. 111

For the Dashboard uninitiated, a decent (if tad contrived) live walk through the best of Carrabba's two previous discs of heartache, and the band's now trademark campfire sing-along-with-Chris shows. The best part of the CD/DVD package? Finding a tight live rock band underneath all of the teenage heartache. Sadly, marshmallows aren't included.

Best tracks: "The Best Deceptions," "So Impossible"

"A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar" (2003)

Peak position: No. 2

How can you mend a broken heart? Fall in love, stupid. Which Carrabba seems to have done on this sweet, cautiously uplifting disc. The addition of more instruments and a quicker tempo to Dashboard's usual acoustic mix makes it one of the band's best efforts. Come on. Get happy.

Best tracks: "Hands Down," "Rapid Hope Loss"