First of the bunch we went to was Paramore at the LG Arena in Birmingham, with support from Fun and BOB. Fun came on 10 minutes early, which was a bit of a shock, as a band starting early never happens! We were excited, as we have followed them for a while and knew of the lead singer Nate Ruess when he was in the great band The Format as well. They performed brilliantly, but as they are a little unusual (to people who think Paramore are alternative anyway) some people were a little bemused by them! As me and my husband were singing along a girl approached me to ask "sorry, but who are these?" Their name does truly reflect the band, they are a slightly camp indie/ power pop band, but their music is so joyful and infectious. They were a party of different instruments and sounds.
Next up was BOB, not being a fan of his music, he didn't manage to change my mind I'm afraid.
Paramore were great! We saw them at Leeds and they had the misfortune of having sound issues, so we didn't get a true feel for what they were like, as you could barely hear Hayley singing. Their performance was virtually flawless, they were humble, gracious and real crowd pleasers. They did a brilliant acoustic set in the middle, that allowed the musicianship to shine. At the end they allowed a girl from the crowd to come up on stage to perform part of one of their songs, a night she will certainly never forget.
Then on the Sunday of the same week, we went to see one of my all time favourites Jimmy Eat World at the Birmingham Academy. We managed to get on front row, so I was pretty pleased with that. Support came from Minus The Bear, who did a relaxed and confident set. They came across as being very down to earth, performing tracks mostly off their new album, Omni, which has quite an electronic feel.
This was the third time we'd seen Jimmy Eat World and by far the best. Jim Adkins came on in his trademark, black shirt, smart trousers and smart shoes, appearing to be rather insignificant if you saw him on the street, however, behind a microphone he is something else! They delivered everything I expected and more, performing a great mixture of songs from their amazing back catalogue, while promoting their new album Invented. They seemed to perform so many songs, and did an encore of 4 fantastic songs. My personal highlight was when they performed 'Goodbye Sky Harbour" which is one of my favourite songs, but I never expected to hear them perform as the album version is 16 minutes long! And I think they did nearly the full length! It was mind blowing!
After two amazing gigs we went to see 30 seconds to mars at the NIA last week. I'm afraid to say they really disappointed me. Support came from Funeral Party, who were great with their jerky indie rock, but as they were on first there was a lack of atmosphere.
I am not a fan of Enter Shikari, for me they are just a mash up of too many musical genres. I start to get into a part of their song and then it goes off in a tangent, but having said that, I think they did quite a sterling job in warming the crowd up.
Then for the main act 30 seconds to mars (cue screaming girls!) For the other two gigs I left feeling elated (the way you should feel after a good gig), but 30stm left me feeling cold! I think if your a huge fan of them you would still leave thinking they were amazing, but they (I mean Jared) laid on the fact they think they are a 'cult' so thickly, that anyone who just likes the music would get annoyed. He was self indulgent through-out and never sang a whole song, preferring to get the crowd to sing every other sentence.
There were several huge gaps in the set, where it went dark and not a lot seemed to happen, I presume to enhance expectation. The encore was lame consisting of 2 songs, which were so fragmented by the huge gap where they decided to take photos of the crowd to put on Jared's twitter page and got about half the crowd up on stage with them. I just wanted them to perform some music! Not impressed.
No comments:
Post a Comment