2014 Round Up: Favourite Gigs

Paramore

Reading Festival
Obviously any year where I get to see my fave trio is fantastic and every time i've seen them has been incredible but this Reading appearance, although having the potential to be destroyed because of shitty sound, actually ended up being more magical because of it. They prove to me time and time again why they're my favourite and, if possible, make me fall more in love with them. Side note: apologies again to those who were near us and heard our singing. You may have mistaken us for cats fighting.

Tonight Alive

Cardiff, Solus 27/11

Oh my days these guys have just become so heartbreakingly stunning live. Their Reading performance was amazing and a good warm up for this show but it had nothing on the passion and energy in that room. This tour felt important and that night felt poignant.

Fall Out Boy

Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena 15/03

Blargh, Fall Out Boy, still questioning how I made it through their four year break. I mean what a show this was - I got to see The Pretty Reckless, there was an acoustic middle, a drum solo and they played 'Save Rock And Roll.' Quite honestly it felt a lot like dying and going to heaven.

A Day To Remember

Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena 26/08
One cancelled gig, several months and a Reading performance a day beforehand and I was finally at their headline show which absolutely did not disappoint. The set list was excellent and the fun they bring to their shows was infectious enough to carry throughout the entire the arena which in itself is amazing to see them playing venues of that size. Just a couple of years ago I saw them in university cafe.

Taking Back Sunday
Bristol, o2 Academy 08/12

Finally. FINALLY. After something like 13 years listening to them I saw them live with my brother and sister and it was just everything I could have dreamed it being. Not many words are required here because they simply would not do the night any justice. They carry the prize for the loudest crowd moment i've ever witnessed.

The Wonder Years

Cardiff, Great Hall 06/05

They provide an emotionally charged, safe place to expel ones demons and make everything ok and for that I will forever be thankful. Whether at their own headline show or Reading festival they win all the awards and gratitude for simply existing.

We Are The In Crowd

Cardiff, Slam Dunk 27/05

Earlier in the year I saw them at their headline show where we had M+G and they were epic and then their Slam Dunk performance was even better. They're seriously coming into their own and becoming quite unbelievably striking.

La Dispute

Cardiff, Clwb Ifor Bach 17/05

The very first time I saw them and they were brilliant. They're so unique in their sound and performance, its very raw and the energy is like a shaken up bottle of coke just waiting to explode - which of course for King Park it does.

Mayday Parade

Cardiff, Solus 03/02

I discovered a new band, affirmed my love for another, finally got to see Man Overboard after years of trying and was turned into an emotional wreck thanks to the triple threat of 'Miserable At Best', 'Stay' and 'Hold On To Me.' Pretty standard then for a Mayday gig.

New Found Glory

Cardiff, Solus 23/11

I'll probably never tire of seeing these guys live especially if they keep dragging out songs like 'Hold My Hand' and 'The Story So Far' and, incidentally, bringing said band on tour with them.

Jimmy Eat World

Reading Festival
Like with Taking Back Sunday there aren't really any words that can describe how I feel when seeing Jimmy Eat World. There's a lot of nostalgia, tears and teethy grins. Plus, I saw them twice that day.

2014 Round Up: Favourite Albums

Lights

Little Machines

Favourites: Muscle Memory, How We Do It, Running With The Boys

Earning one of the top spots in my list is the beautiful synth-pop Little Machines. From start to finish it took me on a journey of the last year of my life in particular, sound tracking my trip around Europe for me to relive over and over when I got home. Lights' vocals are sweet and stunning as ever and the musical arrangements draw the very best from her previous albums whilst introducing new elements even on the equally as sublime bonus tracks. My original ramble described Little Machines as breathtaking and a masterpiece and honestly, I still stand by that. 

PVRIS

White Noise

Favourites: Holy, Ghosts, Let Them In

This album is what dreams are made of I swear to whatever higher entity there is up there. If I could write an album this would probably be it. If I could sing I would pick Lynn Gunn's voice. If I could pick someone to work on my album with it would be Blake Harnage. Honestly this has got to be the most impressive debut i've ever heard. PVRIS have found their sound and holy hell is it good. Everything about this album is so incredible I don't really have the right words for it, the only disappoint is that it ends. If you do just one more thing this year please, please, please make it listening to White Noise. 

We Are The In Crowd

Weird Kids

Favourites: Manners, Come Back Home, Reflections

After Best Intentions and seeing them live several times I was wondering whether the five piece would head into a more pop direction or if their second full length would be more punk and Weird Kids kind of does both. I don't think it's necessarily the music with We Are The In Crowd I think it is a lot to do with them. They've made an album which has honed in on their own unique sound that straddles both sides of the fence jumping back and forth for different songs and depending on the crowd. They sound better than ever and their future gets brighter looking every single day.

La Dispute

Rooms Of The House

Favourites: Woman (In Mirror), Stay Happy There, For Mayor In Splitsville
I can't think of any other band that sounds like La Dispute they're in their own league where they continue to make albums unaffected by what the rest of the music world is doing. Rooms Of The House continues to hit hard and beautifully and is verging into Deja Entendu worship worthy territory. 

The Pretty Reckless

Going To Hell

Favourites: Absolution, House On A Hill, Blame Me

Long awaited second offering from The Pretty Reckless exceeded my expectations. Light Me Up was brilliant but made a lot of people stick their noses in the air and I wasn't expecting Going To Hell to be able to change that but I think it did. Yes, in places there was crass immaturity but overall this album has something more to say than 'hey i'm high and underage but please have sex with me.' A couple of the songs are pretty hard hitting, musically they've changed it up a bit dabbling with different sounds and Taylor's vocals shine as ever. 

Moose Blood
I'll Keep You In Mind, From Time To Time
Favourites: Cherry, Bukowski, Boston
ENGLAND HAVE THEIR VERY OWN BRAND NEW CIRCA YFW. There isn't much more to say about this really other than the album artwork is one of my favourite people shot by another one of my favourite people so there's that.

Transit

Joyride

Favourites: The Only One, Follow Me, Ignition & Friction
Transit have done it again. Joyride is yet another exceptional album that I will spin all summer long. I feel bad for people that don't understand their sound and the direction they're going in and can't see past their own ideas for the band because their sound is such a uniquely charming one.

You Me At Six

Cavalier Youth

Favourites: Forgive And Forget, Cold Night, Wild Ones

It took a long time for this album to grow on me. When I first heard it I thought all the songs sounded the same and they lacked any real feeling. Generic music with a generic emotion. Eventually though after listening to it so many times something about the way my brain perceived it changed. It's not Sinners Never Sleep and they were never going to write Sinners Never Sleep Part II because somewhere during that album cycle and the potential break up they grew up. And that's what Cavalier Youth is - a nostalgic, half terrified half hopeful collection of songs for darker summer days.

Taking Back Sunday

Happiness Is
Favourites: Better Homes And Gardens, All The Way, Nothing At All
I have a lot of time for Taking Back Sunday. For me, despite their line-up being anything but, their music has always been consistently fantastic and whatever stage I am at in my life it is always relevant and there for me to go back to. They are a safe place. Happiness Is hits all the emotions with its' sound progressing forward but somehow being more reminiscent of earlier Taking Back Sunday albums.  

Taylor Swift

1989

Favourites: Out Of The Woods, Bad Blood, New Romantics
Ah, Taylor Swift who knew that 2014 would be the year the world watched you learn and grow and turn into a kick butt fairy princess feminist icon? And as for 1989, whilst a lot of the older die hard fans are gutted by the disappearance of the country sound, as a sucker for synths I am completely in love with the synth pop direction. There's straight up love songs, songs blasting the shitty media and songs for shitty friends that all come with excellent vocals and synth goodness. Scattered throughout is a fairy tale theme and on the bonus track 'Wonderland' tips over and, obviously, plays a lot on Alice In Wonderland which made me positively giddy with joy.

Honourable Mentions:

Neck Deep / Wishful Thinking

Real Friends / Maybe This Place Is The Same And We're Just Changing

Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties / We Don't Have Each Other

Charli XCX / Sucker

Tigers Jaw / Charmer

Modern Baseball / You're Gonna Miss It All

Yellowcard / Lift A Sail

New Found Glory / Resurrection

Natives / Indoor War

Bayside / Cult

Take Me Back: Reading Festival 2014 (Friday)

After hurried packing a mere ten hours after returning to the UK I was in a car and on the way to Reading. Thursday went without hiccup unlike last year and the 'short walk to Tesco' fiasco. With a good camping spot, the near-by Tesco located and vodka in the system the mediocre fun fair almost seemed as exciting as Germany's Europa Park. 

Friday morning got off to a weird start with us taking spots at the main stage to watch Hacktivist followed by Crossfaith and if I was feeling sleepy two hours before then I certainly wasn't anymore.

With no time between the end of Crossfaith and the start of La Dispute, many would have witnessed my hysterical shrieking when the big screens came into my vision and frontman Jordan Dreyer was already on there shyly bouncing around. Their unique sound - and the list of people I know who like them being restricted to two - I was surprised to see the NME tent packed out. Looking around there were the kinds of people who were in attendance at the epic Cardiff headline show I caught earlier this year but also a wide array of people who I would've never have guessed were fans. Typically, the band played flawlessly with tracks mostly from their beautiful masterpiece Rooms Of The House with older tracks like the weighted 'a Letter' cropping up every now and then.
With his face bloody and voice shaking Jordan broke out of storyteller mode just long enough to timidly talk to the crowd about their best friends Touche Amore whose frontman joined the band onstage causing an excited uproar in the tent for a fantastic send off to La Dispute whose set unfortunately had to end. Whilst my heart swelled with pride at the sizeable crowd the five piece managed to capture I almost wish they'd been put in the Lock Up tent for a more intimate show like the Clwb gigs I favour over everything.

***

I've managed to lose about three hours of my life as I honestly couldn't tell you what I did after La Dispute and before Jimmy Eat World's first appearance of the day. Something about Jimmy Eat World makes me feel euphoric. These guys are verging on gods of my world. Completely adorable and with faultless music the grin that takes over my face when I see them could push Lewis Carroll's Cheshire off the charts. Opening with 'Bleed American' the crowd was wild from the start right to the kinda ironic end 'The Middle.' The crowd were with them the whole way through yelling along on those upbeat tracks 'The Authority Song' and 'Sweetness' or attempting to sing in key on the softer songs 'I Will Steal You Back.' I have a relatively short list of places I would happily stay stuck in a loop for forever and Jimmy Eat World gigs are pretty near top spot.

***

Staying at the main stage Enter Shikari were next to entertain our ears and just like back in 2012 it didn't take long for me to start questioning whether we were actually going to make it out of this crowd alive. To say that Shikari fans are enthusiastic would be the biggest understatement I could ever make. 'Solidarity' right through to 'Gandhi Mate, Gandhi' sees the craziest crowd melt under the sun until Rou just can't help but get educational on us all. Pre-'Anaesthetist' the crowd found ourselves cheering him on as he rambled about the NHS and the morons who run our country and whilst the chaos was momentarily calm it didn't take much to open the pits once more.

***

Checking all limbs were still attached we collapsed outside the Lock Up stage and heard some of Brody Dalle's set but with a crowd of people trying to get Greg James' attention we were distracted. Starting off as just two girls it wasn't long before what seemed the whole of Reading was gathered calling to him and throwing their demo's. Turning away for thirty seconds I near enough broke my neck when one of the mob screeched Paramore. Sure enough my favourite trio had taken seats in the Radio One balcony for their pre-show interview. Ecstatic and near bursting with excitement to be reunited with our Tennessee babes we unashamedly stared at the backs of their heads for half an hour until earliers reluctant goodbye to Jimmy Eat World came to an end.

It's at this point in the post I feel I should give a mention to how atrocious the sound had been so far that day. Most of the mics were no where near turned up enough and Jimmy's second appearance was almost twenty minutes late because of the sound system and when we finally got off to a start it turned out to be a false one with guitars having to be switched around as the sound was so bad. But anyway, I stood there kicking myself that I hadn't put a bet down that their headline set was to be Futures in full. The Reading Festival set time people were not in my good books as we could only catch 'Futures' 'Just Tonight...' 'Work' and 'Kill' before our final goodbye and mad dash to the main stage. It's Paramore time.

***

Joining a train of people determined to get a semi-decent position (yes, for Paramore I would be one of those people) we found ourselves stationed centre left of the stage in a mix of people that had faces of skeptics yet the moment 'Still Into You' blasted through the speakers the crowd was dancing and singing along with such force I thought we were going to jump the band right off stage.
Continuing with 'That's What You Get' I could feel everyone being absorbed by the magic of Paramore. Hayley spins and stomps her way around the stage probably throwing real-life fairy dust as she goes and Reading is falling hook, line and sinker for the blue-haired pixie and her best friends destroying the stage alongside her.

'For A Pessimist' starts off their feistier performance followed on by the ultimate angry song - 'Ignorance.' And the crowd is there with them screaming the first verse raring for the chorus when... nothing. The sound is out. Silence strikes the crowd before the murmurs and realisation that they don't even know hit us. Fingers crossed the sound will come back quickly the crowd carries on singing and sure enough before the last chorus the sound is back and impressively we're still singing in time.

Oblivious, 'Pressure' and 'Decode' go by without a hiccup when mid-speech and disaster strikes again. The 80,000 strong crowd stand there wondering just how long they're going to let Hayley talk before someone tells her we can't hear. Eventually, thanks to the front row, she's clued in and suddenly on a mission to figure this out. The crowd boos and chants mean things at the sound people unforgiving for the interruption of the best damn hooks of the last decade. Miming a mock temper tantrum Hayley plants herself on the Paramore box and tells us how they refuse to move until the sound works again - thank god, I was nearing a break down at the thought of their show being pulled. Some fifteen minutes later the trio sit together and we're told the system is down. The three may be terrified that they've lost it now but the worry need not exist as an acapella version of 'The Only Exception' takes place leaving the hairs on the back of everyone's necks standing on end. A landmark show in the bands' timeline truly became one to remember, initially for the wrong reason but the fandom united there and turned the disaster into a stunning moment in the trio's career.

Taking her spot in front of the keyboard 'Last Hope' reduced a good half of the crowd to tears with its brutally honest lyrics, I for one would be happy to watch Paramore play that song forever. Bringing it back to old school tunes 'Brick By Boring Brick' was followed by 'Misery Business' and one dinosaurs chance to be a part of Paramore history when she was handed the coveted golden mic for that killer bridge part. If by now the fandom wasn't already in pieces the trio's next move most certainly tipped us over the edge. RIOT's dark 'Let The Flames Begin' complete with the hair-raising outro continued into it's sister song 'Part II' and let me tell you I could see nothing through my tears. Any remaining doubters out there were soon silenced as their exceptional talent was blindingly obvious and undeniable as they poured their heart into those intense ten minutes.

Sadly it was nearly time to say goodbye but not before they had us all grooving once more to two self-titled tracks 'Proof' and and near everyone's new favourite Paramore song 'Ain't It Fun.' As we all sang 'don't go crying to your mama...' my brain tried desperately to make sense of this band and how it's possible to be so bloody incredible. I walked away from the main stage that night with the confirmation that being part of their fan base makes me part of something and that night that 'something' felt bigger than ever - the world truly is theirs and I don't think anyone dare complain.

Top Tunes: May

HalfNoise - Mountain

"But half of me is half of you I runaway so you would know. And half of me is half of you I wonder why I let you go"

Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties - You Ain't No Saint

"I grew up and grew dull and you say I wished I hadn't"

We Are The In Crowd - Reflections
"Pinning paper wings on problems hoping that they'll fly away, turn our backs, ignore the truth if they can't support the weight"

La Dispute - a Letter
"I think the thing is that I shut off from everything. From friends and family and my own ambitions. From having fun. I just shut off from everything"

Neck Deep - Crushing Grief (No Remedy)
"I'm sick and tired of all your bullshit when all it is who can scream the loudest"

YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

Take Me Back: La Dispute (17/05/14)

In typical fashion we were late for the doors and missed the first support act Eugene Quell but we turned up just in time for support band O'Brother who came out all clashing drums and powerful vocals that created a mixed reaction in the packed out crowd. There were moments of clarity where the instruments matched Tanner Merritt's angst ridden outbursts but after a while the songs blended into one and the drawn out delivery of every lyric started getting a little too pretentious even for a room full of Jesse Lacey worshippers. There was a touch of Muse about them with the way Merritt projected his vocals whilst the music was more fitting to the headliners. They closed their set and left me wishing i'd checked them out beforehand so I wasn't trying to work out exactly what sound they were going for.

Now it's a week on and i'm still gracing the bruises from the crowd surfing, crowd crushing sweltering hot and very drunk room that Clwb had become. And if you think for a split second i'm complaining then you're entirely wrong. From the moment La Dispute broke into "HUDSONVILLE, MI 1956" the crowd were eagerly trying to keep up with the storytelling genius - what I mean is successfully managing to passionately yell every other word in time.
With a storming set list the crowd got rowdier as the night progressed and the reaction to old and new songs alike were just as excitable instead of being in favour of one or the other like is (unfortunately) common at gigs. After taking several shoes to the head during "Stay Happy There" and "St. Paul..." the set - and Jordan Dreyer who had been bouncing around like a kid that had been injected with caffeine - slowed down for the gorgeous sounding "Woman (In Mirror)." 

With the crowd chilled out Jordan introduced their next song "a Letter" with the line 'this song is for anyone who suffers from a mental illness' and the atmosphere in the room plummeted to a sombre one. The entire room sung along, some joining the band in holding back tears. The frantic crowd returned the second "Andria" kicked in and my brother - who lives under a rock and didn't know Rooms Of The House existed - was shocked at the slightly more upbeat sound to "For Mayor In Splitsville." 

Announcing this was their last song and thanking us for making them feel at home the band launched into "You And I In Unison" and everyone was jumping on top of each other determined to get closer to these musical gods. Somewhere in the ruckus a guy lost his shoe and nearly decapitated me trying to give me a sweaty forehead kiss for finding it - uh, thanks dude. The band disappeared to the non-existent back stage - well the band stayed on stage awkwardly staring while Dreyer sat to the side on his own - and the crowd tried several different chants before settling for screaming "KING PARK" at the top of our lungs. Laughing his way back on stage Dreyer joked how that didn't go quite to plan before the band, of course, closed with "King Park" and the room just about lost it. There was no holding back on anyone's part.

Top Tunes: March

The Pretty Reckless - Absolution

"Jump into the sun, dear boy, what are you running from? An answer you won't find in your grave"

Fall Out Boy - Save Rock And Roll
"I need more dreams and less life, I need that dark in a little more light"

The Wonder Years - Dismantling Summer
"I've been acting like i'm strong but the truth is i've been losing ground"

La Dispute - 35
"I pushed my palms against the table hard to see if it hurt, were it glass would I have shattered it? Could I battle every impulse to panic and then win"

Taking Back Sunday - Nothing At All
"You wait in the dark for the music to soothe you to sleep, swallow your fears become them eventually"

YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

Top 5 Tunes This Week

30 Seconds To Mars - 100 Suns

"I believe in nothing but the truth and who we are"

Natives - This Island

"Burn the memories and i'll forget there was ever a day that we first met"

La Dispute - Nobody, Not Even The Rain

"I know that even with the seams stitched tightly, darling, scars will remain"

Man Overboard - Montrose

"And my heart caves in when I look at you"

Taking Back Sunday - MakeDamnSure

"My inarticulate store bought hangover hobby kit, it talks. It says, 'You, oh, you are so cool'"