Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
Friday December 16, 2016 :
A Day to Remember are currently in the midst of a major world tour to support their new record Bad Vibrations, accompanied on the Australian leg of the tour with supports Tonight Alive and Issues.
US-based Issues, a band I personally hadn’t known much about previously, played a decent set in front of the two hundred-or-so punters who arrived early enough to watch them. Their excitement to be onstage was palpable and they delivered a high-energy performance, which is exactly what you want from a support act. Unfortunately this didn’t ring true for Tonight Alive. While the room became significantly fuller when Tonight Alive took the stage, the group quickly lost the attention of the crowd once they started playing songs off their new album Limitless, so much so that the sound of people talking almost drowned out the band completely. It also doesn’t work in their favour that each song sounds exactly like the one before, making for a significantly dull 45-minutes.
A Day to Remember finally took the stage at 9.30pm, kicking things off with ‘Mr Highway’s Thinking About The End’ off their 2009 Homesick album (still their strongest album in my opinion). In the first 30-seconds of their opening song, I quickly remembered how fucking good this band are live (granted, I hadn’t seen them live since 2011).
Their 20-song setlist was slightly skewed towards the new album and included new tracks such as ‘Paranoia’, ‘We Got This’, ‘Bad Vibrations’, ‘Justified’, and ‘Naivety’. ADTR still managed to fit in all the crowd pleasers from previous album releases, such as ‘The Plot to Bomb the Panhandle’, ‘Fast Forward To 2012’, ‘2nd Sucks’ and ‘All Signs Point to Lauderdale’.
The group didn’t forget the additional fun elements they always bring to their shows and this time around they ranged from toilet paper and blown-up balls, to confetti and free merchandise.
The show was slick and well polished, but vocalist Jeremy McKinnon seemed to be having trouble keeping up with his own fast-paced lyrics. This was particularly evident in songs like ‘I’m Made of Wax’, ‘Larry’, ‘What Are You Made Of’ and ‘My Life For Hire’ where McKinnon slipped several beats behind the rest of the band. Whether this is due to exhaustion, an off night or if a 20-song setlist was just slightly too much for him is unknown, but none of the crowd seemed to care or notice.
This tour also saw the addition of a monitor wall behind the band, showcasing sick personalised graphics and animations synced to the setlist and sometimes showing live footage of the show. McKinnon, at one point, also personally took the camera around, getting shots of the mosh pit. One of the best moments of the show was when McKinnon and lead guitarist Kevin Skaff came out with the acoustic guitars and performed a particular stirring rendition of crowd favourite ‘If It Means A Lot To You’.
Closing out the show with ‘The Downfall Of Us All’, A Day To Remember showed that they are truly one of the best live bands touring now, with a show that has something for everyone. I definitely won’t be waiting another five years to see them again.
Reviewer : Amy Powter
Photographer : Alicia Stephenson
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