For some, MTV Unplugged brings to mind an image of Chris Carrabba in a black polo, hair gelled into a petrified wood-like state, with a red, white, and blue sweatband on his strumming arm.
For many, remembering MTV Unplugged means remembering Kurt Cobain. These people aren’t wrong to do so. That performance, but any measure, was iconic.
But for a much smaller portion of the population, MTV Unplugged brings to mind an image of Chris Carrabba in a black polo, hair gelled into a petrified wood-like state, with a red, white, and blue sweatband on his strumming arm.
Also, sideburns.
All of it is about as 2000s as any one piece of media can be, and I’d like to break it down starting with:
Track 1, “Swiss Army Romance” (0:00)
“So, uh, this is Unplugged,” Carrabba says.
Oh to be young, sheepish, and wearing a form-fitting polo.
“Dashboard Confessional Unplugged, which might be redundant,” Carrabba adds. This fucking guy. This beautiful bastard. “Thank you guys for coming.”
And then he launches into it. And everyone in that studio is right there with him, as into anything as anyone’s ever been. We’re talking a shoulder-to-shoulder, possible fire code violation crowd — a full-on singalong from the jump.
Track 1, “Swiss Army Romance” (2:26)
It’s important to note, I think, that when you watch these videos back on YouTube, Carrabba isn’t the only guy or gal in that room wearing a form-fitting polo and an arm bad. It was a big decade for both of these items, a decade where any one person could be wearing two or more of either item on their person at any given time.
Did I mention that the crowd is into it? At the 2:26 mark, or thereabouts, you see a young polo-clad man sitting with his legs crossed, belting along to every word, his arm-banded wrist raised high in the air. Nobody in the history of the world has ever lived their truth more firmly than this person, and for that I am envious.
“We’re not 21,” Carrabba sings, with backing vocals coming from all angles. “But the sooner we are, the sooner the fun can begin.”
Track 2, “The Best Deceptions” (1:14)
Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the song title. “The Best Deceptions” wasn’t even overdoing it. See: “The Boy That Blocked His Own Shot,” “The Pros and Cons of Breathing,” “If You Wanted A Song Written About You, All You Had To Do Was Ask.”
”So kiss me hard, because this will be the last time that I let you,” the crowd belts.
The alien might ask: “To what would you compare the emo era?” One might respond: “You know that feeling when you win an old argument in your head while taking a shower? It was like that, but all the time. And you were 12. So the subject matter was somehow both incredibly relatable and not relatable at all.”
Everything about this version of “The Best Deceptions” feels like it’s being used as an encore. I think that’s what makes Dashboard’s Unplugged session so oddly intimate — it’s the second song in the set and the crowd is singing roughly 99.99 percent of the words.
It’s hard to tell but Carrabba may already be losing his voice a little bit by the 3:30 mark.
“You guys sound good,” he says.
Track 7, “The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most” (0:02)
You hear that one person screaming from the audience like they’ve done for pretty much every song so far. You begin to wonder to yourself: What the hell is going on? Was MTV handing out amphetamines at the door? Could I really have turned on the television in 2002 and watched this all happen?
Track 7, “The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most” (2:07)
Everyone in the room is screaming. SCREAMING.
“You can’t fake it hard enough to please everyone or anyone at all,” they cry.
It’s possible MTV cut out the parts where they had to replace Carrabba’s guitar strings, armband, and various elbow tendons after every song. Just for his sake, you begin to wish that he’d covered his whole strumming arm in protective, color-coordinated sweatbands. I mean he is going for it.
(Also, by this point in the show, he is no longer alone on stage, closing this song out with some help from another guitarist.)
Track 15, “Hands Down” (0:00)
“So here’s, uh, a song about the best day that I’ve ever had.”
This fucking guy. This beautiful bastard.
This whole performance has been an out-of-control high-speed emo railway car.
If it were The Trolley Problem, the guy with the lever and the lone guy on the switch track would have formed a band, broken up, and each formed their own bands by now. (The lone guy on the switch track in this scenario is Jesse Lacey, somehow. It’s how “Jesus Christ” was written, I think. Just kidding.)
But I digress. The full band is now on stage, that one person is still screaming, and the crowd’s backing vocals have somehow become louder. This is the one they wanted, this is the one they’ve been waiting for.
Track 15, “Hands Down” (0:46)
“WE’RE DOING FINE. WE’RE DOING NOTHING AT ALL.”
Track 15, “Hands Down” (1:25)
“HEY, DID YOU GET SOME? MAN, THAT IS SO DUMB.”
Track 15, “Hands Down” (1:36)
“STAY QUIET, STAY NEAR, STAY CLOSE, THEY CAN’T HEAR. SO WE CAN GET SOME.”
They’ve lost it. They’ve gone to ludicrous speed. Carrabba hasn’t been conscious since the first time he said the word “uh.”
Track 15, “Hands Down” (1:39)
“My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me. So, won’t you kill me? Then I’d die happy.”
You know those songs you want to listen to on repeat when you have a crush on someone? The 2000s had those, but with what I can only assume was a higher rate of references to death.
Now, this appreciation is not meant to compare the performance in any way to other Unplugged sessions. It’s just the one we got. It was absurd. But it was ours.
Our big, dumb Ambercrombie commercial.
-stream or download our “Valentine’s Day Mixtape” episode below-