Mayday Parade, Real Friends, The Story So Far @ The Tivoli, Brisbane (24/02/2014)
Arriving at The Tivoli right on 6:30pm when doors opened, I was looking at something I had never seen before in my history of attending gigs. What looked like literally the whole audience for tonight’s Sidewave were lined up outside the venue.
I’m not the biggest fan of all three bands that were playing this show, but there’s one thing I learnt pretty quickly, these fans are damn passionate about their music, especially considering a lot of them had probably gone straight from school to the venue for the all-ages show.
First up were Real Friends, a punk-pop four piece from Chicago. They were on their first tour to Australia and seemed pretty taken-aback that they were playing to a full venue at 7:15pm on a Monday night on the other side of the world. There was certainly a lot of people just here to see these guys, and their 30 minute set didn’t disappoint fans.
The band ripped through song after song, trying to fit as much as possible into their short set, and their energy was replicated with the crowd hoisting up crowd-surfer after crowd-surfer and screaming back the lyrics to every song. The band stuck to their more upbeat tunes and Late Night in My Cars was a highlight, the singer’s voice reminding me a lot of early Millencolin.
The Story So Far came on stage after a short change over and immediately got the most rowdy crowd of the night, with a massive crowd rush to the front of the stage. I therefore decided to retreat and watch the rest of the set from the side of the venue.
I could appreciate why their fans loved the show, it was full of energy and passion, and the band was obviously pretty appreciative of the response they got from the fans. It just wasn’t my type of show, I found the vocalist’s blaring singing pretty grating and there was no real change-up in the style of songs played, eventually the songs just melded into each other for me and I was glad when their 45 minutes were up.
The crowd instantly calmed down for Mayday Parade, who were actually the most mellow band of the night, however that didn’t mean there was any less passion from the near-capacity audience. The slow-building opening track, Ghosts, from new album Monsters in the Closet was a great opening track, kicking in halfway through to give a real sense of liveliness to the band which was replicated in the audience’s reactions. Interestingly, from here on in, half of the set comprised of material from fan favourite first album A Lesson in Romantics. Black Cat was a really fun jump-around song that showcased the band’s tight but upbeat sound, whereas Miserable At Best was a lot of the crowd’s highlight of the night, the piano ballad involving shared singing duties between front-man Derek Sanders and drummer Jake Bundrick, but ending as the crowd drowned them out, singing the final chorus as one.
Going off-stage to rapturous screaming and applause, it was only right the five-piece came back to finish with I’d Hate To Be You When People Find Out What This Song is About, taking one last chance to show off their strong melodies and a killer chorus. As the crowd filtered out, even though three bands had performed, all with numerous fans in attendance, it was clear Mayday Parade had shown their class to leave a lasting impression upon everyone as one of the finest pop-punk groups around.
Sebastian Betten
I’m not the biggest fan of all three bands that were playing this show, but there’s one thing I learnt pretty quickly, these fans are damn passionate about their music, especially considering a lot of them had probably gone straight from school to the venue for the all-ages show.
First up were Real Friends, a punk-pop four piece from Chicago. They were on their first tour to Australia and seemed pretty taken-aback that they were playing to a full venue at 7:15pm on a Monday night on the other side of the world. There was certainly a lot of people just here to see these guys, and their 30 minute set didn’t disappoint fans.
The band ripped through song after song, trying to fit as much as possible into their short set, and their energy was replicated with the crowd hoisting up crowd-surfer after crowd-surfer and screaming back the lyrics to every song. The band stuck to their more upbeat tunes and Late Night in My Cars was a highlight, the singer’s voice reminding me a lot of early Millencolin.
The Story So Far came on stage after a short change over and immediately got the most rowdy crowd of the night, with a massive crowd rush to the front of the stage. I therefore decided to retreat and watch the rest of the set from the side of the venue.
I could appreciate why their fans loved the show, it was full of energy and passion, and the band was obviously pretty appreciative of the response they got from the fans. It just wasn’t my type of show, I found the vocalist’s blaring singing pretty grating and there was no real change-up in the style of songs played, eventually the songs just melded into each other for me and I was glad when their 45 minutes were up.
The crowd instantly calmed down for Mayday Parade, who were actually the most mellow band of the night, however that didn’t mean there was any less passion from the near-capacity audience. The slow-building opening track, Ghosts, from new album Monsters in the Closet was a great opening track, kicking in halfway through to give a real sense of liveliness to the band which was replicated in the audience’s reactions. Interestingly, from here on in, half of the set comprised of material from fan favourite first album A Lesson in Romantics. Black Cat was a really fun jump-around song that showcased the band’s tight but upbeat sound, whereas Miserable At Best was a lot of the crowd’s highlight of the night, the piano ballad involving shared singing duties between front-man Derek Sanders and drummer Jake Bundrick, but ending as the crowd drowned them out, singing the final chorus as one.
Going off-stage to rapturous screaming and applause, it was only right the five-piece came back to finish with I’d Hate To Be You When People Find Out What This Song is About, taking one last chance to show off their strong melodies and a killer chorus. As the crowd filtered out, even though three bands had performed, all with numerous fans in attendance, it was clear Mayday Parade had shown their class to leave a lasting impression upon everyone as one of the finest pop-punk groups around.
Sebastian Betten