All Time Low + Good Charlotte + Against The Current @ Barclaycard Arena, 13th February 2016
On this cold February evening the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, is bustling with excitement as the venue hosts All Time Low’s “Back To The Future Hearts Tour” with support coming from Good Charlotte and Against The Current, drawing in the crowds from all over Britain.
The night starts off with Against The Current personally a band I’ve never heard of but neither did half the audience as front women Chrissy Costanza asks the audience who’s heard of them, She was shocked to find it was a 50/50 audience in a good sense.
They kicked off the night with their new track “Running With The Wild Things” from their upcoming album “In Our Bones”. A catchy, energetic song with awesome vocals to boot.
Up next was Maryland’s pop punk greats Good Charlotte who are making a return to the music scene since their hiatus in 2011. They started their set strongly playing Anthem, Story of my old man and Bloody Valentine which sent fans into a stir of excitement to see the boys back on that stage.
Joel spoke with the audience about Pop-Punk shows being the best shows to go to and that pop-punk will never die. This seems to be a current theme with many bands of recent times stating this at live shows like Bowling For Soup and New Found Glory, who even titled their tour “Pop Punk Never Dies”. He also said that he thought all the riot girls had gone many years ago but then All Time Low hit the scene and all those riot girls came back before dropping into the track.
Throughout their set there was a lot of referencing to fellow tour buddies Jack and Ryan of All Time Low with Benji joking that he was Jacks Father. He also dedicated their song “Make Shift Love” to Ryan saying, “ This song is for you Ryan, I remember our kiss”.
Next were the band that everyone had been waiting for All Time Low; well I’d say the people that were left in the arena as about 20% of the audience left after Good Charlotte’s set. As the lights came down a spotlight lit up the back area of the stage and slowly the band rose from a platform built into the stage of course. with Jack being his usual quirky self rising into the arena with his top lifted up and one hand down his pants.
From the get go the tempo was relentlessly fast, full of high-energy antics timed nicely with the pyro for the first 3 tracks Kids In The Dark, A Love Like War and Dancing With A Wolf. As usual there were plenty of bra’s being thrown forward with Jack frantically running around attaching them to his mic stand, even his own head at times, along with the sexual references and Yo’Mamma jokes.
As the band went into Runaways a member of the audience threw a pair of yellow sunglasses on stage with Jack picking them up to wear them for a brief second before handing them to tour photographer Adam Elmakias to wear and taking his camera swiftly from him to turn the tables and photograph him in them. There was also a strange little blow up man thrown on stage, which later was named Kenneth by Alex.
Alex took a serious moment with the crowd to talk about “addiction” and how addiction can come in many forms and if you know someone struggling help them there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, and to remember to have hope, before playing Missing You.
The night ended just how it started with high energy, even the crowd broke out into three mosh pits across the arena floor while Jack danced around in Union Jack underwear.
Setlists:
All Time Low:
Kids In The Dark
A Love Like War
Dancing With A Wolf
Backseat Serenade
Lost In Stereo
Poppin’ Champagne
Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t)
Runaways
Tidal Waves
Bail Me Out (With Joel Madden)
Therapy
Missing You
Coffee Shop Soundtrack
Don’t You Go
Old Scars / Future Hearts
Encore
Weightless
Something’s Gotta Give
Dear Maria, Count Me In
Good Charlotte:
Intro
Anthem
Story Of My Old Man
Bloody Valentine
Girls And Boys
Riot Girl
Makeshift Love
Young And The Hopeless
The River
Dancefloor Anthem
Just Wanna Live
Lifestyles
Against The Current:
Running With The Wild
ThingsTalk
Forget Me Now
Dreaming Alone
Uptown Funk (Mark Ronson Cover)
Outsiders
Gravity
Review and Photographs: Sophie Jones