GIG Review: A Day To Remember – Birmingham

Touring with their first album since breaking from Victory Records, A Day To Remember’s Bad Vibes tour promised to be as full on as it’s namesake record.

Three other giants from the pop punk scene accompanied ADTR on the UK leg of the tour, Moose Blood, Neck Deep, and New Found Glory, who have just announced their own 20 Years of Pop punk tour.

I’ll be honest, I missed Moose Blood’s set. A girl’s gotta eat.

Neck Deep provide a solid, if a little tepid, performance which was met with mixed reactions, but that’s not surprising given how divide the UK pop punk scene seems to be on the band. After stopping a song to call out two dudes fighting up front, Neck Deep did give a pretty catchy performance Can’t Kick up the Roots.

New Found glory whipped up a decent amount of energy from the crowd. Although the instrumentals where good, the vocals seemed a little lackluster. It was almost impossible to decipher anything from lead vocalist Jordan Pundik, but when your songs are as well known as NFG’s, it doesn’t matter too much. Their cover of Kiss Me as was gorgeous and helped to pace the set nicely.

A Day to Remember opened the set with a Homesick classic, Mr. Highway’s thinking about the end. This was a real crowd pleaser and instantly opened up a great pit, which frontman McKinnon encouraged (“You don’t have to participate, but stand the fuck back!”) before launching into the first single from Bad Vibrations, Paranoia.

Having won AltPress’s Best Live Band award back in 2015, the Floridian quartet having done nothing but improve on stage (and man, were they already good back in ’15), and in the studio. Bad Vibrations is arguably one of the best albums they’ve put out their and just judging from Birmingham’s show, the tour is really doing it justice. McKinnon’s voice has gone from strength to strength and his abilities as both a hardcore vocalist and singer are as good, if not better, live as they are in the studio. There was not a note out of key or beat out of time the whole evening, yet the performance was full of all the charm of a live show.

The set was an awesome mix of the bands older stuff like Fast Forward to 2020, fan faves including My Life for Hire, and I’m Made of Wax, Larry, and new classics like the seriously heavy Exposed, and Right Back at it Again from their previous album Common Courtesy.

 

(video not mine)

 

If anything, the set list was more pop punk than expected, as I thought they would play more into the mood of Bad Vibrations, which showcased more of their hardcore talents. But, the gig was full of packed with energy from both the crowd and band.

The only thing that was missing was a bit crowd interaction. I did feel at times like A Day to Remember were just running through as well rehearsed set, skipping from song to song. McKinnon tried to chat to the audience during the first part of their encore, an acoustic set of If it Means a lot to You, but were meet with backlash from some of the crowd at the mention of Oasis (hey, I feel you).

Overall, a sick performance from band that just seems to be flaunting the fact they can’t be beaten live, at this point. All I can say is I can’t wait until next time.

GIG Review: The 1975 at the Bournemouth International Centre

It took a few minutes for the crowd to notice the pulsating white noise as it rose in volume, leading into The 1975‘s opening song and first track form the band’s second album, Love Me.

The Mancunian rock quartet are extremely talented live, sounding almost indistinguishable from their recorded music. The aesthetic of the gig was stunning, with two 20 ft screen on either side lighting up with Polaroid-esque silhouettes of the band, or gorgeous visuals including sunsets, water, and night-time cityscapes.

Focusing more on there second album, I Like it when you Sleep, which is decidedly more laid back than their self titled first, the set list was filled with long, meandering instrumentals and one interlude which went on for at least five minutes. Although this would have been wonderfully atmospheric combined with the visual aspect of the night in an intimate setting, the intention was lost in translation on such a large crowd.

The audience reacted much more positively to the band’s rockier songs, especially their encore of The Sound and Chocolate, but fan faves like She’s American and Girls were solid hits. Maybe it was just my bad luck to be standing next to a group of incredibly drunk students, but the rabble that turned up to the BIC seemed to grow impatient and frustrated by the mellowness of the set.

It was a frustration which was mirrored by front-man Matt Healy during his much written about address regarding Trump and Brexit.

“This isn’t a pantomime, this is real life! It’s our duty not to let it become a pantomime,” Healy replied impatiently as the crowed booed both Trump and Brexit.

It’s an important point, not buying into the increasing hyperbole and celebritization when discussing our current political system, but how else are an audience supposed to interact with someone standing on a stage?

All of Healy’s arguments are important, but standing in front of 4,000 or so people isn’t really the place to expect a nuanced debate about the terrifying trend of rising global populism. The front man also seemed frustrated by a group of young people waving at him from the front, telling him “this isn’t TV, I can see you!”. As true as that might be, what does Healy suggest instead? Just to stand and stare up at him? Now that does seem to be a reaction more fitted to TV.

But I understand his frustration. It’s incredibly positive for someone with such influence in pop culture to address politics in front of young people, just as it’s incredibly positive for such a popular band to dedicated a song to the LGBT community (The wonderful Loving Someone). It is undoubtedly exasperating to feel like you have something important to say on a platform you have built, and for it to be received by a hoard of people calling for you to return to singing about drugs and girls.

Overall, it was a set that didn’t seem to know what it was, where instead of giving the audience the hits they know and love, the 1975 decided what they should actually want to want.

Regardless, the music was strong, the band’s stage presence was immaculate and the overall set, positive. Maybe it was the band, maybe it was the crowd, but neither seemed to quite understand the other and that lead to some discomfort, and for me, the feeling that The 1975 missed the mark this time.

But, to echo Matt Healy’s sentiment, what do I know?

GIG Review: Panic! At The Disco

With slick backing graphics, fantastic instrumental back up, and almost inhuman levels of energy, Brendon Urie as Panic! At the Disco at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, was an unmissable event.

Warming up the crowd on a bitterly cold Friday night was Australian, four piece Tigertown. The indie-synth group gave a solid and well rehearsed performance, whose only downfall was that it seemed a little too practiced and as such, lacked a little heart. But, with a little more touring under their belt, they are surely a band to watch in the coming years.

Panic! opened with graphics of the car from Death of a Bachelor album art backed by the intro to Black Eyed Peas hit, Pump It (or not, if you wanna be technical), before the band broke into an unbelievably vigorous rendition of Don’t Threaten Me with a Good Time.

The rest of the set followed suit. Brendon seemed to be having a great time, throwing in the occasional high note to the delight to the audience, doing back flips onto soap boxes, and generally bouncing around.

The singer also gave a brilliant performance on drums mid set. The bursts of synths punctuating each song gave the set a modern and tidy feel and I overheard more than one person saying how much they enjoyed it.

The crowd was also treated to a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody which was warmly received.

My only complaint about this high-production, high-fun performance was that there wasn’t enough of it. The set, which was only an hour and a quarter, focused heavily on Death of a Bachelor and Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die, and only played a one or two songs each from A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, Pretty Odd, and Vices and Virtues. This is probably something to do with the band’s steady degeneration from a four-piece to a one-piece, and Urie wanting to focus more on his self-written hits.

Lucky for me, they did play my all time favourite Panic! At the Disco track, It’s Time to Dance, but I know myself and other fans could have done with some old favourites like Let’s Kill Tonight, Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have, But It’s Better If you Do, Build God The We’ll Talk, or even a cutesy cover of When the Day Met the Night.

Urie also seemed genuinely surprised when he told several hundred Welsh people they were ‘one of the loudest crowds [he’s] ever had’ – clearly someone hasn’t been out in Cardiff on a Saturday night.

The night closed with an emotional version of This is Gospel before Mad Max inspired graphics of the Bachelor car played behind a lively Victorious.

Overall, the night was a brilliant mix of great production, solid vocal and instrumentals, and unflagging energy which was matched, if not more, by the audience. It says a lot when you’re only complaint about a gig is there wasn’t enough of it.

GIG Review: The Wombats

The Wombats are a three piece indie rock band from Liverpool. Their most recent album Glitterbug was released in 2015.

I wasn’t really expecting that much from a free gig in the middle of Boston on a Thursday night. Particularly from three English lads on a day that had seen highs of 39 degrees.

Tonight! FREE City Hall Plaza concert from @RCN with @thewombats! @filpacino at 5p w/ @therealdjpetro spinning until Wombats hit the stage!

— ALT 92.9 Boston (@ALT929boston) August 11, 2016

But I was pleasantly surprised by The Wombats who seemed relaxed and completely in control of the stage. Despite the heat they were high energy and their repertoire felt well practiced and natural.

Bassist Tom DeLonge Tord Øverland Knudsen gave a great upbeat performance, skipping around the stage whenever he was away from the keyboard.

The set was stripped back with no pyrotechnics and minimal lighting but this added to the laid back summer vibe offered by the sunset in downtown Boston.

The trio played all their top hits including Tokyo, Greek Tragedy, Moving to New York, and ended the set with their 2007 hit Lets Dance to Joy Division.

They only thing that was a little lacking was interaction with the audience but for a gig that cost literally nothing and had a great view from the steps of Government Center, I’m not going to complain.