All American Rejects, London Roundhouse
All American Rejects
June 9th 2009
Looking along the line outside the Roundhouse, you’d be forgiven for thinking that female teenagers just don’t care much about exams nowadays. If the crowd was any indication, I felt I should have brought ear plugs.
Supporting the Rejects in England is Essex band Farewell City. Being a British answer to Paramore, they belt out their set with plenty of gusto from lead singer Natalie McQueen. There’s not much to set them apart as a live band, though their rendition of Usher’s ‘Love in this Club’ puts that of the Automatic’s to shame.
Maine band Sparks the Rescue take the stage with a little more presence and gay innuendo between vocalist and guitarist. Supporting the main act through Europe, they’re set to release their debut here in September, and if their live material is much to go by, the crowds here will likely be their audience. That’s the support. Not particularly great, but Farewell City could be a prospect in the coming years.
Next up, the main course, and theatrical is one word that could be used to describe the entrance. Built up by some classical music (from some advert somewhere), an eventual crescendo fused into the start of All American Rejects’ new single ‘I Wanna’. Traipsing onto stage in a half-open white shirt, wearing white trousers, lead singer Tyson Ritter gave a glimpse of the oddities that lay in wait during his on-stage banter.
Now I may not have been to a huge number of gigs in my life, but I know the fundamentals are good music, stage presence and some talk with the crowd. All three criteria were fulfilled, but with varying degrees of abnormality… For instance, ‘Motherf*****s’ doesn’t seem like an entirely appropriate manner in which to address your audience.
The majority of the set is taken from their third album When the World Comes Down, with singles dotted here and there. Highlights regarding the playlist include pulling a girl on stage to sing ‘Mona Lisa’ to and asking the girls in the audience to enunciate ‘Dirty Little Secret’ like naughty schoolgirls prior to playing the track.
As for stage presence, it’s not a good sign when you can overhear someone saying, “He looks SO gay”, about Tyson when two members of the band look like they could be part of a metal pastiche band. The illusion of the pop-punk band was shattered as soon as I heard someone else repeat those sentiments verbatim.
The night wears on and fewer words are spoken (thankfully). The main set ends, strangely, on ‘Move Along’, and the band leaves the stage to perform ‘Gives You Hell’ and ‘The Wind Blows’. Not only was the ordering of the tracks dissatisfactory, but little courtesy was shown. They didn’t even say goodnight.
…The b******s.
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