Live Review

Mayday Parade – O2 Academy Liverpool

• 10th Oct 2012

It’s one of those “grim up north” Tuesday evenings in Liverpool, but you wouldn’t know that from the interior of the O2 Academy. It’s sweltering inside, due to all of the teen heat radiating from this excitable crowd. And let’s be clear about this – this is a young crowd. Very young, in fact.

When For the Foxes’ vocalist, Nicholas Dungo says this is their first time in THE UK, you believe him. For even with his almost world weary, quasi-Gerard Way nasal whine, his eyes are wide with all the wonder of a kid who just discovered sugar. It’s to his credit then that even during their opener he manages to cajole more than half of the already-busy room into waving their arms in unison. There’s an undeniably 80s-tinged New Wave feel to their sound in places – in fact there’s a hint of a synth melody lifted straight from ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ by Billy Joel. However, the buffet of influences they’ve been dining from is apparently broad. I’m reminded of bands as eclectic as Manchester Orchestra, Jimmy Eat World and maybe even Train or Damian Rice. Dungo has some trouble pitching his vocals in parts but on the whole comes across as pretty confident for a first time visitor, and the kids seem convinced. This is a band that doesn’t quite seem to have found their feet yet, but they certainly show some promise and it’d be interesting to see what they’re up to this time next year.

Rebecca Black. Kelly Clarkson. These names spring to mind as soon as The Summer Set takes to the stage. Immediately, frontman Brian Dales pulls out THAT Bieber hand gesture as he belts out refrains like “Chelsea, Chelsea, tell me that you love me,” sounding not too unlike young Justin himself, meeting a somewhat less interesting Daryl Palumbo, in ways that bring to mind the most mundane parts of the far inferior second Head Automatica album. Loops and samples are heavy in the mix here. In fact, it’s hard to tell just how much is on the backing track and how much is being played live. “This song’s about sex!” declares Dales, to the now even busier room of mainly pubescent kids, and lyrical nods to Stairway to Heaven, It’s A Wonderful Life and Bonnie and Clyde seem somewhat misplaced – especially when set to a musical accompaniment that’s much closer to Metro Station’s super-polished electro-pop. Although it’s worth noting that their biggest singalong moment comes in the form of the lyric, “if I hear you talking shit again, I’m gonna sleep with all your friends.” Make of that what you will.

The stage is bathed in blue light when Tallahassee, Florida’s favourite sons Mayday Parade bound on to the stage. It’s clear that the level of seasoned professionalism here has been kicked up about ten notches. For a start, Derek Sanders’ vocals are so much stronger than anything we’ve heard all night. Their three part harmonies sound huge, adding weight to the saccharine sweet sentiments pitched perfectly at the young hearts and minds in attendance. It’s fair to say that the room is now absolutely packed. It’s testament to the underrated strength of their newer material that some of the more recognisable tunes in their arsenal, such as Jersey, can be thrown out as early as second song in the set. We see the return of the hand gestures we saw from earlier bands but somehow Sanders pulls these almost cliché manoeuvres off with such conviction that he does look pretty-damn-cool. It would be impossible to review this band without mention of the relentless thunder of Jake Bundrick’s drums. It’s interesting that I’m thinking more of John Bonham than say, Travis Barker though, and all-round it seems MP owe more to classic rock in general than a lot of their emo/pop punk contemporaries. On arrival of the harmonised dual guitar solos you could be forgiven for thinking Thin Lizzy had made a brief cameo.

Overlooking an awful gag about Liverpool and “Pool of Livers being a good name for a metal band,” the on stage banter is pretty tight too. Sanders mentions that they wrote their first song, Three Cheers for Five Years, seven years ago, which seems astonishing given that they still look pretty fresh faced. With a set rich in theatrics, including multiple key changes, the appearance of a keyboard for the night’s biggest singalong, Miserable At Best, and calls to “open up the floor” for a mosh pit during Black Cat, all the stops are pulled right out. The inevitable main set closer of Jamie All Over brings audible shrieks of delight from mobs of young girls, and the guitarists’ hero posing seems to be simply giving the crowd what they want. You could forgive them for blistering through that song at breakneck speed, since they must have played a lot of times at this point. But you’ve got to hand it to them – it still looks like they’re having a lot of fun.