Live Review

Angels And Airwaves – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire

• 25th Apr 2012

With the sold out crowd queuing outside the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire hours before Angels And Airwaves took the stage, it was easy to see the anticipation on each of their faces. To many of the kids and adults alike attending, Tom Delonge and his band are everything that is right with rock music at the moment.

Yet, the crowd would have to wait. Le Blorr, a relatively unknown band over here, and an odd choice of support to AvA’s unique brand of “Space Rock”, took to the stage first. Once there, the whisked through their half hour set of psychedelic surf rock which, while intriguing, fell flat with the crowd here to see one band, and one band alone.

This was entirely evident once AvA took to the stage. Engaging the crowd almost immediately with opening track ‘Saturday Love’, the audience were in uproar. With due reason, as Angels And Airwaves brought their A game. While not keeping only to their most recent material, crowd favourites such as ‘The Adventure’, ‘Call To Arms’ and ‘Secret Crowds’ brought some of the best responses.

The band has a new drummer in the shape of Ilan Rubin, whose drum solo was surreal, and one of the best moments of the night saw Delonge take to the stage himself to play a song from one of his previous bands. Telling a very intimate story, Delonge started strumming the chords of ‘There Is’, a track from his Boxcar Racer days with guitarist David Kennedy.

The encore was a total of two songs, the long winded ‘All That We Are’ from their most recent record, Love Part II, after which the band gave the crowd one last surge of energy with closer ‘The War’. And with that, the night was finished.

There is a growing concern that, with the reformation of Blink-182, the world does not need Angels And Airwaves, that the band has run it’s course. I can safely say that, after the show they put on, that we need more bands like this one.