Live Review

Four Year Strong – O2 Academy 2, Liverpool

• 7th Jun 2010

Four Year Strong brought their own blend of pop-punk and hardcore to Liverpool, with help from The Wonder Years and My Emergency!

Local heroes My Emergency! played a rabble rousing short set, before announcing before their last song that it would indeed be their last song, as it was their last gig.

Young and upcoming The Wonder Years played a set that was steeped in chantable choruses and feel good anthems to a hungry, packed crowd.

Despite the solid support, the crowd was here for one band only – Four Year Strong. With their recent release Enemy of the World cementing their place at the forefront of the current rock scene, along with the unofficial title of Best Bearded Band in Rock, a crown taken from ZZ Top surely, they kicked off proceedings with It Must Really Suck To Be In Four Year Strong Right Now, which catapulted the audience head first into a great set. An energetic Bada Bing! Wit’ a Pipe from their celebrated debut was up next, followed by What the Hell is a Gigawatt, helping to maintain the frenetic pace.

The packed crowd in a small venue made for a particular sweltering temperature, but that didn’t mean the band were ready to take it easy, quite the opposite. After reminiscing about playing Liverpool previously on the Give It A Name tour a few years back, they churned out fan favourite Maniac (R.O.D). They then asked the crowd’s permission to play a couple of songs of the new record. They need not have bothered, as the enthralled gig-goers would have listened to anything the band had deemed appropriate at that point. Never the less they played the newer songs, beginning with Tonight We Feel Alive (On a Saturday).

Crowd interaction was kept to a minimum, with the band choosing to keep the tempo going with one fan favourite after another. Catastrophe led into Prepare To Be Digitally Manipulated, before they played arguably their biggest hit to date Wasting Time (Eternal Summer).

As per usual, the band was back out seconds later, kicking off the encore with The Takeover, before wrapping up an energy packed gig with Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die with their keyboardist crowd surfing to the finale of the song. The audience went home hot, sticky and thoroughly delighted to have witnessed such a great