Live Review: All Time Low (and Good Charlotte) Take London’s o2 Arena Stage By Storm – 11th February 2016
The first arena tour in a band’s life is always an exciting one for artist and fans alike. All Time Low have officially stepped into the big league with the UK & Ireland leg of the Back to the Future Hearts Tour, playing to some of the biggest crowds of their headlining career. Here is what went down in London last night:
Repeatedly missing out on the first support act is a true concert-goer fact from yours truly…sorry, Against The Current! You are still one of our new favourites and I hope to see you next time.
Huge teenage dreams came to life seeing pop-punk veterans of Good Charlotte for the first time ever. Kicking off with ‘The Anthem’, it was a heavily greatest-hits packed hour long set that mostly included the ‘Young and the Hopeless’-era songs, plus the likes of ‘The River’, ‘I Just Wanna Live’, ‘I Don’t Wanna Be In Love’ and the brand new ‘Makeshift Love. It was the perfect way to warm up an arena full of rocker kids. Performance-wise the energy was high and it felt like the band had never even left. Camp GC and ATL weren’t short on on-stage banter either throughout the night; adding more fun to the event with cameos in each other’s set.
All Time Low gigs are my most frequented band for the sole reason of them being amazing entertainers – I say this every time but it is still true! A ‘Satellite’-intro would’ve been cool, however the band emerging from the middle of stage and hitting straight into ‘Kids In the Dark’ made up for it – almost but not entirely (simply based on personal love for that one).
Most of the time when it comes to showcasing new material live, bands add very few of the latest songs and rather rely on the good old hits. Not this time. ATL’s set-list has gone through major changes for this run and it was delightful to have a good 80% percent of the ‘Future Hearts’ album added. Tracks like ‘Dancing With A Wolf’ and ‘Old Scars/Future Hearts’ are meant to be played in arenas to get the real hang of it (just like with ‘Lost In Stereo’ as a permanent element of the repertoire) – must mention the lighting and pyro design here, because it was especially on point with the latter, and during the entire show as well. Kudos to Jeff Maker once again for being one hell of a talent!
It was a night where secrets were spilled – jokingly or not, lots of fun was had, and mosh pits happened to ‘Coffee Shop Soundtrack’ and ‘Weightless’. Tears were certainly shed while the entire arena of 10,000+ people sang along to long-time fan favourite ‘Therapy’ as one. The most powerful and important song of the band’s career has to be ‘Missing You’ at the moment, especially live – it was beautiful and empowering as everyone shouted “fuck the world ‘cause it’s my life. I’m gonna take it back” all together.
They say two things in life are sure: death and taxes. The third is All Time Low finishing off with ‘Dear Maria, Count Me In’…and taking the stage by storm.
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