Punkers play unplugged in Pittsburgh

By JUSTIN JACOBS

Saves the Day Acoustic Show Diesel 1601 E. Carson St. 412-431-8800 6 p.m.

Though… Saves the Day Acoustic Show Diesel 1601 E. Carson St. 412-431-8800 6 p.m.

Though New Jersey native Saves the Day’s newly released track is subtly titled Get F****d Up, the mission of the band is quite the opposite. For vocalist Chris Conley, music is the only way to get clean.

And be it because of fate, or more likely talent, Conley’s drive for emotional cleansing and truth has helped Saves the Day grow to be not only one of the most cutting-edge bands within the emotional punk rock, or emo, scene, but also among the forefathers of the genre. Needless to say, the band has come a long way from cutting its first album during the winter break of Conley’s senior year of high school.

Now, more than a decade after Saves the Day’s humble beginnings, the band is reaching new artistic and emotional heights with Under the Boards. The album, to be released Oct. 30, is the band’s sixth full-length and the second chapter in a trilogy (that began with last year’s Sound the Alarm) of albums detailing Conley’s painful breakdown and emotional rebirth following the critical panning of the band’s 2003 release In Reverie.

For Conley, the emotions surrounding that dark period in his life were simply too much for one song, let alone one album.

“The story (of the trilogy) is all plotted out,” Conley said in an interview with The Pitt News. “There was a lot of stuff for me to deal with, and it didn’t fit on one album. Then I found out it didn’t fit on two