A & E

The genius of Dashboard Confessional always has been singer-guitarist-mastermind Chris Carrabba's ability to make it seem like he's singing to each and every kid crowding the stage, the die-hard fans who hang on every lyric and sing them back at Carrabba with equal intensity and volume.

Now, with the release of the CD "Dusk and Summer," he's reaching beyond the front rows to kids in the last rows of auditoriums who can't see the details on his tattooed arms but know that he sings from the heart.

"I think that's the result," says Carrabba, who performs Saturday with Dashboard Confessional at the Chevrolet Amphitheatre, Station Square. "But it's not necessarily (the intent). I wish I was as good at being as calculating as that. I'd probably have more success."

Actually, Carrabba has met with more than a small measure of success. With Dashboard -- as Dashboard, actually -- he's progressed from playing small clubs to outdoor amphitheaters. Instead of a few hundred fans, there are a few thousand. And he's done it without sacrificing his core principles, even if the music now is louder and more fully orchestrated. Following "A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar," the new release is another step away from his acoustic roots. The core of the music, however, remains the same: Carrabba's self-examinations yield songs that inspire via their emotional content. How it happens is a mystery.

"The process of writing the songs is really uplifting," Carrabba says. "But I don't know what comes first: Did you feel like feeling uplifted and you made these kinds of songs, or did you feel uplifted by the songs? I'm not sure."

While the range of emotions vary, Carrabba thinks the end result is generally the same.

"The subject matter is sometimes serious," he says. "It's never lighthearted, but sometimes it's more evidently exuberant, sometimes it's more evidently somber. But either way, I think you feel almost exhilarated. If it's a somber feeling, you feel like you're expunging that feeling. It's an elated feeling; you almost feel like you're basking in it."

On "Dusk and Summer," there are songs about seizing the moment ("Don't Wait"), infatuation ("Rooftops and Invitations") and fate ("Currents"). Carrabba even takes on social commentary with "Slow Decay," a song that offers encouragement to U.S. troops abroad with the sentiment that when they get home, "it's safe here/there's nothing to fear at all."

Carrabba says, to an extent, the songs are a glimpse into his personal life. But only to an extent. The things that drive him -- grief and sorrow, love and happiness -- are shared experiences. That's why he resists any assumptions about himself based on his musical output alone.

"Maybe at the end of a career, you can get a glimpse of who a person is," he says. "When I made my first records, they were somber. I think people would have thought I was a sad sap, but they would have been wrong. And I know from experience if they would have met me they would have been surprised. ... I'm a very engaging person. I'm not holding up this wall of weirdness, and I'm not sad or anything like that. I'm pretty even-keeled, but it's my practice to really let myself go with a song in either direction. You have to be open to what you're really feeling, and maximize the feeling like teenagers do. ... You feel it in such a profound way, and that's something we lose as we age."

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