Last summer, I went through such an ordeal listening to friends back in the Philippines and raving about how great one of my favorite bands is. As I was already living in London at this point, I missed out on quite a performance at two venues back home, one in Makati and the other in Camarines Sur.
The pictures, the experience, the road trip, the conversations, and hanging out it with the band were all missed.
Sure, I live in a country where there are more live music performances than you can shake a finger at, but this is one band I wanted to see first. Plus, I am sure, it was quite an experience for them. Yes, you can call it bloody selfish.
And on Sunday, I finally got to see them live and it was a real wicked experience. I would love to jump in to their performance, but I can’t help but be sequential.
After quite a walk from Stockwell Station (Brixton Station and the whole Victoria Line was closed) to Brixton Academy, I was relieved to see no queues outside as we were already a little late and the first band was already starting.
Whole Wheat Bread was up on stage and more than halfway through their. I ‘ve never had the chance to listen to them before so I decided to buy some merch first and grab a pint. They were still on stage by the time I was done and from what I heard, I didn’t miss anything much.
Next up was Versa Emerge, a band which at first look and listen, sound like Paramore as they were similarly aged and had a female on lead vocals. I quite enjoyed their performance and will go out and say that Sierra of Versa Emerge can sing better than Hayley of Paramore. Hayley and Paramore have more stage presence though as they have been around longer and are more popular. Still, a real interesting and promising set from another relatively new band.
Since Brixton was much smaller than Earl’s Court, there was only one stage for performances which made the wait between bands a bit longer. With the next one being a new discovery for me, a band I really dig, the wait really felt longer.
It was Innerpartysystem on stage now and thankfully, my fears were alleviated as they did not turn out to be something like last year’s Cobra Starship. They sounded as good as they did on record which was quite dance-inducing. Their set was limited to a few songs but it was quite well rounded. They ended their set with Don’t Stop which was just amazing.
Now for the next band, Escape The Fate. What can I say aside from them being quite horrible. Sorry. I wasn’t looking forward to see them but did slightly enjoy their album Dying Is Your Latest Fashion. Nothing really special but it was an ok record. Seeing them on the bill didn’t get tme all excited but for me, it was a nice addition to the already great lineup.
They were too flashy but sounded ridiculously awful live. I still can’t wrap my head around how many people wanted to see the band and were actually enjoying their performance. As I was pretty close, I remained standing but none of the songs even made me move, bob my head nor tap my feet, just shaking my head in utter disappoint. It was that bad. Not knowing the songs has nothing to do with how I felt towards the band. Good bands would at least get you moving. This had none of that.
In fairness, there were two songs which sounded a bit close to their album, in other worst, almost good. These were The Guillotine and Situations. While writing this post, I learned that they changed the vocalist after their album, Dying Is Your Latest Fashion. This explains quite a bit but the awful performance goes beyond the vocalist.
Seriously, if they headlined the event, I would have left right away. This was the worst live performance I have ever seen.
Thankfully, their set eventually came to an end and what better way to wash the awful taste left by ETF than the band I’ve really been looking forward to see this day, Thursday.
As they came up on stage, I couldn’t control my excitement and tried to get as close to the stage as possible. They kicked off their set with For The Workforce, Drowning. Geoff was really quite a sight to watch onstage with some massive mic-flailing action going on. Keeping the pace they started with, they followed suit with Understanding In A Car Crash which was epic.
A member had to go home during the tour, so Geoff mentioned they would only play one new song, Friends In The Armed Forces, which had me smiling as I was really hoping to hear old stuff. The next song made me really go mental, it was Jet Black New Year. It was an absolute blast hearing this song. I knew they played this in Manila but that was a full setlist. GIAN usually only give 6-7 songs per non-headlining band. This trend of old songs continued with Cross Out The Eyes at which point I almost had no voice from all the singing/screaming. To close out the set, they played War All The Time which almost had me tear up.
It was master performance by Geoff and the rest of the guys from Thursday. Of course, the setlist was terribly short but I had already set my expectations before hand about this. I am so glad I have finally seen them live. Another band ticked off the list. Here’s hoping the band would announce a tour here to promote their new album, Common Existence. I’ll surely be up for that.
Underoath was up on stage after Thursday and it is safe to say that all hell broke lose. This band really shook the place up, stirred it around and shook it some more. I’ve listened to them before and really enjoyed their album They’re Only Chasing Safety. Their other album, Define The Great Line is also quite good but I have not listened to it as much as I would have liked to. Sadly, I was expecting them to sing Reinventing Your Exit but they didn’t.
A friend (Niche) once told me that Underoath is a Christian back then. I never gave this much thought since last night. Somewhere during the end of their set, the vocalist, Spencer, preached a little which really surprised me. Obviously, this got a lot of boos from the crowd.
It was then time for the headlining band, Taking Back Sunday. I saw them last year at London Astoria but for some reason, did not blog about them. They were as entertaining to watch now as it was back then especially with Adam Lazzara’s now perfected and masterful mic-flailing.
Their set was a great mix of very old songs as well as 2-3 new ones from their upcoming album which Adam clearly mentioned as coming out on June 1. Here is a quick rundown of the setlist as per Setlist.fm: You Know How I Do, Error: Operator, Set Phasers To Stun, Carpathia, You’re So Last Summer, One-Eighty By Summer, New Again, Liar (It Takes One To Know One), Cute Without The ‘E’ (Cut From Team), Sink Into Me, A Decade Under The Influence, What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost?, and MakeDamnSure.
The songs from Tell All Your Friends are still emotional ones for me. Actually, most of their songs from each album all have some kind of effect on me and with them being quite catchy, it was time to start singing and dancing again.
All good things do come to and end as well, and as this was a GIAN event, there was no encore.
All in all, it was another amazing night and in comparison with either day of GIAN 2008, I would have to pick this one as the best as almost each band gave a superb performance. Also, it is so good to be back in Brixton Academy again.
BTW, I love the pictures I took using Inara. This is the first time I brought here along for a give, and it was good. I should take her out more often. For more pictures, check out the Picasa album.
