Live Review

McFly – Echo Arena, Liverpool

• 1st Apr 2011

Last night saw veteran pop rockers, McFly take to the stage at the Liverpool Echo Arena for their ‘Above The Noise Tour’. The four piece kicked things off with the thumping, electronic beats of one of their edgier tunes, ‘Party Girl’. The futuristic backdrop, beaming light show and pyrotechnics that would make Motley Crue blush, set the tone for the first third of the show with the boys rocking out to their more electro inspired recent hits and some album tracks. This included an impressive vocal performance from (sometimes) front man Danny during ‘That’s the truth’ and a rare, solo vocal from bassist Dougie in ‘Transylvania’ of which we missed the first few lines due to the shrill screaming of some particularly excited Dougie fans.
The crowd consisted mainly of groups of teenage girls with the odd boyfriend and parent thrown in for good measure. However, judging from their performance there is certainly a lot more to them than pretty faces and dance moves, although they too were in abundance with lead singer Tom lapping up the attention from his adoring fans.
The boys slowed the pace down with old hits ‘All about you’ and ‘Obviously’ which were performed acoustically, resulting in the present keyboardist and female backing singer leaving the stage and taking McFly back to their guitar-pop roots.
Tom and Danny hold fans attention throughout, verging on being a comedy duo with constant interaction and banter with fans. Danny receives a ribbing from the rest of the band due to his evident mistake during ‘End Of The World’ in which he forgets both his guitar and vocal parts, showing the genuine bond between the band. Other than his mistake, Danny’s Springsteen-esque guitar playing and vocals are consistently brilliant and combined with Tom’s falsetto, carries the band. Drummer Harry takes a backseat – so to speak – and his crowd interaction consists of shooting t shirts out of an air gun to screaming fans, although his drumming is both energetic and faultless.
Before reverting back to their new sound for the end of the show, the band perform their first single ‘5 Colours in her hair’ which celebrated its birthday last night and at 7 years old it was definitely older than some of the audience members. A cover of Tinie Tempah’s hit ‘Pass Out’ sees Danny donning shades and rapping to a heavier rock beat than the original and presents the band’s want to prove that they are moving with the times and growing with their fans.
‘Shine a light’, their duet with man of the moment Taio Cruz is saved for their last song and with this comes confetti canons and flames. It seems McFly have managed to evolve and better their music, therefore appealing to a completely new audience without leaving any of their original fans in the dark.