Photo by: David Lorish

What constitutes a real rock show? Arvada locals The Say So can tell you after their show Thursday night at the Hi-Dive. Frequents of local venues such as The Marquis and Herman’s Hideaway, it wasn’t until Thursday night that these boys finally delivered a genuine rock display of angst, volume and reverberating roar.

The slamming chorus and riffs flowed effortlessly from The Say So, as they seamlessly blended songs from their former album, En Plein Air, tracks off their recently recorded Something Like Wild, and even a cover or two from Damien Rice and Kings of Leon.

They spoke little, other than an introduction of the band after the first song and for the rest of the night they let their music shake their audience. 

They managed to have the Hi-Dive packed and their people moving from the get go when they opened with, “Criminal,” the first track off of the soon to be released Something Like Wild.

The surging guitar and electric presence of the boys on stage was palpable as the audience moved and clapped along to a range of tunes.

The boys brought out a few songs from their previous record, En Plein Air, including “Your Voice Replaced My Wind” and “What’s Been Waiting.”

The song “Your Voice Replaced My Wind,” begins with a slow build of instrument and sustains circling, aching emotion that was a perfect fit for the enclosed Hi-Dive stage allowing for the intimate expression between themselves and their audience.

Other highlights included the play off of their newest, self-recoded Something Like Wild. “We Were Strangers” details the story of a one night stand, and lines like “We were strangers/ Yet before that night/And then we were lovers until the day broke light” make an eerie bar soundtrack as this situation plays itself out in the seams of the audience.

The band’s cover of Damien Rice’s “Volcano”  was exceptional, largely because of the driving guitar from Noah Fisher, who has no fear of letting himself disappear completely into his instrument.

With his back hunched and his face twisted, his leering guitar revived this song and gave it the angry edge Rice’s violin doesn’t quite express.

Always a band to persevere, the lead singer Sean Palmer announced at the end of the show that their drummer Robbie Spradling had cut his hand earlier that day, gotten stitches and might at that moment have blood running down his hands. But hey, he was bringing his all to the drum set regardless.

These guys love it that much and they won’t be defeated, blood or no blood.

Responsive to their crowd, the boys really heated things up during the encore by de-shirting for the final song.

After inviting up Petals of Spain’s Hunter Hall, the band launched in a fiery rendition of “Sex on Fire,” with Palmer and Hunter trading off vocals that the had entire audience dancing and shouting along.