Friday around 8 in the morning, there was already a dozen die-hard fans waiting outside Metropolis with their camping gear. Nearly two hours later, the line tripled in size and went around the block. Finally inside, the crowd was exactly as I expected: first rows filled with really young teenagers ready to get crazy as soon as the band appears, with a ratio of probably 1 guy for every 30 girls.
The first performer was Nova Rockafeller and she was worse than the critiques I’ve heard from the people waiting in line. A New York based performer, her style was similar to Ke$ha’s, with really short songs. With lyrics like ‘’Money over bitches, money over everything’’ and ‘’Ain’t no VIP,’’ she managed to receive admiration from the crowd by throwing away shirts, including the one she was wearing. Ending her set (by giving her phone number) with “One of These Days” and the soundtrack from the movie The Duff, “Made in Gold”. -16/10
After a short intermission, it was time for Set It Off, with a sound closer to current All Time Low’s, with a heavy touch of pop. According to Alex Gaskarth, these guys all went to high school together, but parted in different bands. They were highly anticipated from the fans wearing their merchandise and, to my disappointment, I just wasn’t into it. The band sounded like a modern version of the Backstreet Boys with a song like “The Haunting”, but the frontman’s voice was closer to The Summer Set’s Brian Dale.
With a hint of Justin Bieber for the song “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”, this band’s sound was an odd mix, but appropriate for this kind of audience. The only ‘’rock’’ moment of their whole 9 song set, in my opinion, was the short solo part of “Ancient History”. Before the song “Wild Wild World”, the singer made a speech about gender and racial equality, which encouraged the crowd to raise their phone lights. Set It Off really knew how to warm up the crowd for All Time Low by making the audience sing along melodies before their last song, “Why Worry”. All in all, they were great performers, being able to make the crowd sing and jump along, and those successful guitar throws were impressive. 4/10.
After disappointing opening bands (or at least styles that didn’t match my 22 year old man’s tastes), All Time Low was finally making their way on stage. Last time I got to see them was at Warped Tour in 2012 so I was pretty excited to see them again! I must say I was really afraid of going to their show as they tend to have a pretty terrible fan base, similar to the fan base of bands like Of Mice & Men, Sleeping With Sirens or Motionless In White: aka crazy fangirls that are ready to fight to touch one of the band members or to get a guitar pick.
The band started their performance with “Satellite”, taken from their latest album, Future Hearts, a perfect way to start, with its anthemic/chanting vibe that gave me the chills. “The Irony of Choking on a Lifesaver” was next. Despite a sound similar to what they’ve done on Dirty Work in 2011, the live version of the song was a total success seen through my eyes, but it was nothing compared to “Lost in Stereo”, one of their best tracks from the album Nothing Personal (2007). The song, with its Jimmy Eat World angst feeling in the chorus, had the crowd going crazy and definitely asking for more! I always love seeing how fans react when bands play their older songs, you can see that spark in their eyes and the total excitement they have, as if they’ve been waiting for that moment forever, they can’t contain it and it needs to be released! I got the same feeling when listening to the next song, “Stella”, from the same album. We were definitely feeling like we were falling in love and didn’t want them to take us home during that song!
The band took a quick break right after that song, starting to joke around like they usually do. They started asking the crowd for some “Amen”, as they apparently wanted to take the church here and ended it with a “Hallelujah”. Why? Well I still don’t know but it was quite funny and the crowd was playing along. The band then delighted us with another song from their latest opus, “Runaways”, driven by its pounding rhythm section and with lots of distorted guitars that we all love. Far from being my favourite song from that album, it was still pretty catchy and got me ready for the next song, the great “Damned If I Do Ya (Damned if I Don’t)”. Fun fact, that song was actually written 50/50 by frontman Alex Gaskarth and Butch Walker, and became All Time Low’s first and only US Billboard Hot 100 charting song, debuting at N°67. Frontman Alex Gaskarth let the crowd sing the first lyrics of the song and went on with the rest. His performance was pretty flawless to me, despite him admitting that he was a bit sick that night.
During that same song, Jack Barakat being true to himself, was making sex signs with his hands as Alex was saying “If I do ya”, which made the teenage boy in me crack up. However, it always makes me wonder if those jokes are appropriate to their crowd, mostly composed of young teenage girls… Not to mention that some of them were throwing their bras on stage, which looks really really wrong to me.
Maybe it wasn’t their weekend but it was for sure their night! As you may have realized with my pretty lame play on words by now, the next track the band played was “Weightless”, the opening song from Nothing Personal. I must admit that this album is probably one of my favourite from them, so it’s hard for me to say anything bad about it, it was pure gold for the teenager I was back then and nothing can ever change that. “Tidal Waves” was next. I bet we all wish that Mark Hoppus (who features on this song in the album version) would have been there to sing it with Alex on stage. It was still a delight live and it is to me one of the best ballads they have ever written (“Remembering Sunday” is still N°1 in my heart though, sorry not sorry!).
The band then gave us “Therapy”, the closing song of Nothing Personal, and made us smile at everything they’ve performed that night. The memories of that evening will definitely remain in all of us, as their performance was one of the best I’ve seen this year.
The lovely ballad “Missing you” and its feel-good pop anthem was next. This one might have been a little bit too much for me as they already put quite a number of calm songs in their set, but it was still nice to hear. However, the songs that were to follow were much better in my opinion. But before that, during one of their breaks, the band brought a flag from Québec on stage (Yay, Québec!), but also some plastic ducks, from the dollar store I guess… Once again, why? Who knows but it was a pretty funny scene to see. Oh and did I forget to mention that Jack told us that Mary Poppins was his crush when he was younger? Yeah, that’s important information guys, and to all the ladies out there, if you look like Mary Poppins, you may have a shot with him!
Where was I already? Oh yeah, the next songs of the set… Whether it was “The Reckless and the Brave”, “A Love Like War” (originally featured with Vic Fuentes from Pierce The Veil) or my N°1 favourite “Backseat Serenade”, the band’s performance was flawless. There isn’t much to say when you see a band that has been around for a long time doing their best: you just need to stand there, sing along to your favourite songs and enjoy the night. Forget all your problems and lose yourself in the music, the moment you own it… Yes, I just pulled an Eminem right here.
Did you want more jokes from Jack by any chance? Cause I do have more for you! After telling us that he was born in Canada, Jack added that the only Canadian thing about him was his penis… He then managed to pull a maple syrup joke related to his penis, if you see what I mean. Once again, the crowd is mainly composed of underage girls, but hey who am I to judge, right? It’s pretty funny to me but I can’t help to think that it’s a little tiny bit inappropriate. If you weren’t there that night, you also missed a short flashlight fight between frontman Alex Gaskarth and guitarist Jack Barakat, that ended right before bringing some fans on stage to sing “Time Bomb”, taken from Dirty Work. I bet all the lucky fans who got on stage that night won’t forget that show anytime soon! It was amazing to see the band having genuine fun on stage with their fans, making them sing along and jump around as they were playing the song. I doubt many bands would do what they have done that night (unless you mention Dave Grohl: there is no doubt that no one can be as great and badass as him on stage and with his fans). The last song before the encore was “Something’s Gotta Give”, from their latest album: It was the first single released announcing their new album, with a pretty cool zombie video clip that you should definitely check out!
The show was almost done, and the crowd pretty disappointed to see it coming to an end. Good thing they still had 3 songs to go! The first one was “Kids in the Dark”, from their last album, along with “Jasey Rae”, and keeping the best for last… “Dear Maria, Count Me In”. Wonderful songs to finish with, even if after taking a look at previous setlists, I was hoping they would cover “All The Small Things” from Blink, like they did a few days ago in Brazil. It was still pretty good, and Set If Off’s Cody Carson joined the band on stage to sing “Jasey Rae”. It felt like stealing hearts calling their name from the crowd, but damn what a terrific show it was!
By the end of the evening, all the fans were ready for more but unfortunately, it had to end. Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” started to play in the background as most of the crowd was leaving the venue as the rest of it came closer to the stage to hopefully get setlists and guitar picks. Once outside, I could see a huge line in front of their tour bus and I believe that most fans waited at least an hour to get to meet them. I didn’t have the patience for that nor to deal with fan girls, despite All Time Low being one of my favourite bands.
All in all, I wish All Time Low would’ve toured with the original bands from their US Future Hearts tour, being Issues, Tonight Alive and the great State Champs, I would’ve enjoyed the beginning of the evening way more! Nevertheless, their performance was truly stunning and I can’t wait to get to see them again! 10/10.
All Time Low: Setlist
Satellite
The Irony of Choking on a Lifesaver
Lost in Stereo
Stella
Runaways
Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t)
Weightless
Tidal Waves
Therapy
Missing You
The Reckless and the Brave
A Love Like War
Backseat Serenade
Time-Bomb (fans on stage)
Something’s Gotta Give
Encore:
Kids in the Dark
Jasey Rae
Dear Maria, Count Me In
Review – Maxime Lehuidoux
Photos – Eva Blue
