All Time Low
With the Downtown Fiction, Hit the Lights, and the Summer Set
Friday, November 9
Revolution Live
Better than: Being hanged, drawn, and quartered.
Ever wonder where angsty teens hang out on the weekends? Yeah, us neither, but we knew where they were Friday night, engulfing the entirety of Third Avenue at Revolution for the eye gouging, ear bleeding, vomit inducing tweeny-pop-punk stylings of All Time Low's Don't Panic tour, mostly due to the opening acts. This all may sound super judgmental for the opening lines of a review, and it is. But don't get us wrong, we've all been 14 and found one band who opened the doors to our personal expanding musical tastes, and one that sort of defined that for the rest of our peers as well. We've crowd surfed, moshed, and cried salty emo tears with the best of them, but this show in particular, as someone whose taste in popular alternative music waned when realizing Hot Topic was like the counterculture Walmart, was just bananas.
The Downtown Fiction took the stage first, dressed in their plaid-iest plaids and skinniest jeans. Singer Cameron Leahy cooed at the sea of impressionable young ladies while their boyfriends stood back, admiring what their futures could be. While there wasn't quite as big a crowd response as later in the evening, there is no denying that these fans are die-hard and, when Leahy screamed, "How you sexy bitches doing tonight?!" the raging hormones of many a pubescent young lady went wild.
Hit the Lights put on the best set of the night. Together since 2003, albeit with a few changes in the line-up, these guys have been influential in the scene since its early incarnation. Like when we were in high school and wore our studded belts to the side. While singer Nick Thompson took shot after shot of a dark colored alcohol we can only guess was whiskey, the entire band hyped up the crowd and a decent sized pit opened up as their hit "Body Bag" echoed throughout the venue. There was a fan dressed as a banana who led a security-fenzied crowd surf sesh that left plenty proud, and just as many bruised.
When the Summer Set walked out, we were pleasantly surprised to see a female drummer. Not being super familiar with this band, we give Jess Bowen props for pounding away at the drums and making up for the super awkward sex jokes of the Bieber-y Brian Dales. Sure he sang sweetly to adoring tweens, but his banter with fellow dude band mates regarding Selena Gomez and the Biebz breakup made our skin crawl, and not in a fun and sexy way.
"I call dibs on both of them," Dales screamed to the roaring approval of the crowd. "We could sword fight over Selena." Umm, wait, what? Ew. You're nasty. Not enough icky almost pedophilia for you yet? There's more! Dales led into the bands' recent hit "Fuck U Over" with an a cappella spoken word: "I didn't mean to fuck you" -- scream, faint, puke -- "I didn't mean to fuck you over." Well guess what Brian, you didn't fuck us up, but you sure as hell creeped us the fuck out.
After a Carly Rae Jepsen "Call Me Maybe," Taylor Swift "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," iconic Blink-182 "All the Small Things," and a left fieldy Drake's "The Motto" (aka the YOLO song) crowd-wide singalong, and several beers later, All Time Low's banner was dropped upstage and the madness really started. The band immediately dove in to their repertoire of panty dropping dance hits with "The Reckless and the Brave." They moved seamlessly throughout their nearly ten year discography pleasing old fans and new with their '09 single "Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don't)," and tracks from their recent release Don't Panic in early October. The stage decor was something else, and it wasn't long before we had to excuse ourselves to the outdoor patio to recover from the panels of non-stop strobe lights, fearing a seizure.
Within the first thirty seconds of their set, though, bassist Zack Merrick caught his first bra. No, that wasn't a mis-type. There were bras -- and lacy panties -- galore thrown on stage throughout the entire set. Every color, size, shape, you name it. It was bra-a-palooza. We lost count at over two dozen hung from mic stands, thrown on bass stems and strewn over speakers so, really, we're not entirely sure how many budding breasts were bare by the end of it all. We can only speak for ourselves and say that we left with exactly what we had on when we got there.
Critics Notebook:
The Crowd: White kids that love to crowd surf.
Personal Bias: When did it become OK to wear the shirt of the band you're going to see to the show?
Overheard in the Crowd: "Oh my gawwwd, I can't believe we'll be seniors next year!"
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