Back in 2009 I ventured to Cardiff with my dad - after being abandoned by Meg for school play rehearsals - (oh, how young we were) to witness the phenomenon that is Paramore for the first time. Being too young in the past - damn those venue age limits - I was bouncing off the walls to see them.
Over a year later they finally returned to our shores and this time I was going. Spare tickets handed out to my brother's flatmates we looked out the window of their student digs and waited for the mother of all queue's to shrink before crossing the road and heading into the venue. Honestly Now, Now Every Children and Paper Route's performances are a blur so I won't do them the injustice of trying to remember because I really just don't as I was too busy hyperventilating that my favourite band were going to be in the same room as me (how the hell did I keep it together when I met them last year...).
Then the younger You Me At Six took to the stage. I was a total cynic to these lads thanks to Save It For The Bedroom which just drove me crazy but after seeing them live they convinced me otherwise. Well, as long as that song isn't mentioned. Take Off Your Colours was their only album in existence at the time and they were all sporting enough hair to make 100 wigs out of. Opening with Kiss And Tell and finishing with The Rumour they managed to win over a lot of new fans during their 8 song set list that may have had to do with the fact that the one and only Hayley Williams joined them for slow song Always Attract. One minute Josh Franceschi was singing and I was falling in love and the next I was being crushed on all sides and the crowd was screaming at the top of their lungs. Being 5 ft 3 and the population of Cardiff seeming to be quite tall I couldn't see what was going on and then I heard quiet female harmonies and a part in the crowd let me glimpse the blonde head of Hayley. It's no wonder I couldn't see what was happening.
And then when the room went dark and the haunting guitars to the Brand New Eyes Intro began, the deafening screams of the crowd reached new levels and the flash flash flash of cameras blinded the room. The drums shook the floor and the crowd joined in with the declaration of "there's evil in your heart and it wants out to play" and with slickness that only Paramore can achieve they moved into Ignorance, otherwise known as the best angry song ever written, second only to Brand New's Seventy Times 7. And the crowd got louder still as the bridge hit and Hayley clambered on top of the cases, threw the microphone out to us and waited for the yells of "Ignorance is your new best friend" to reach the quintet's ears. The rest of the set was brimming with the best of Paramore from Emergency to Crushcrushcrush to love ballad The Only Exception and it seemed that the further into the set they got the louder the crowd became, the bands' enthusiasm apparently contagious. Having been a fan from the start - not gonna lie I do feel a tad smug at that - I had the worst feeling that I would be disappointed live and had convinced myself that the video's were making them seem better than they were but where ever those thoughts came from Paramore did a damn good job at smashing them into pieces. Vocally Hayley was outstanding never hitting a bum note even when flinging herself around the stage and her band mates shone live playing their instruments like it's a matter of life or death. A Paramore show wouldn't be a Paramore show without the infamous "Pressure Flip" from Josh Farro and Jeremy Davis. We know it's coming and yet when it does it's still impossible to contain our gasps, praying they don't fall with a tiny part of us hoping they do, because really, how can 5 people be so perfect? But of course they flip, they land, the little self esteem remaining is shattered and the show goes on. Finishing their set with Decode the band disappear off stage and the chanting of "Pa-ra-more! Pa-ra-more!" ensues. Soon enough the band return to play Misguided Ghosts before launching into Misery Business which had the crowd going mad. Paramore finished their epic night in Cardiff with Brick By Boring Brick where the final "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba da's" from the crowd sounded so beautiful and desperate for them not to leave us that it reduced me to tears.
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