Paramore live at Manchester Academy: Report

Sep 5th, 2007 by Los Havros

By MaSh and Los Havros,

First off, if anyone can remember us, we were the ones in matching Paramore Riot! T-shirts which had the UK tour dates on the back. A couple of other random things before the gig I want to get off my chest. I thought the ticket touts were out of order, even though I was expecting them to be around. People were arriving in taxi’s and ticket touts were opening the doors and poking their heads in and asking for spare tickets. Surely human decency says this is wrong and common sense says that if you do have a spare then you won’t be giving it to someone like that. There were also some idiots in the upper window of the building who were throwing stuff down into the queue. There were also some people who jumped the queue at the start, luckily the guy on the door spotted some of them and told them where to go.

We arrived at the Academy 2 at about 6pm. The tickets said things would start at 7:30 so we wanted to be early enough, and although we were early enough, the queue was already 30-40 people long. The atmosphere was pleasant enough, some more exuberant than others. One girl said ‘touch me!’ and I would be happy to oblige if you get in contact with me.

At last, we were let in and despite Los Havros’ protests for bathroom break no 61 of the day, oi, we went straight through to the main area, got our spot (for the moment anyway) in the middle, about 5 or 6 rows from the front. First up was Lost Alone.

Lost Alone

Lost Alone impressed me straight away and seemed like a traditional rock band. The trio took the stage confidently and immediately got into a blistering set. Although I must confess, having never heard them before, I can’t recall any song names, but even so, they impressed me so much I ordered their first album online the next day. Their lead guitarist also does the vocals and it has to be said, carries the band totally. I think he kinda looked like Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day. The drummer looked like Lurch from the Addams Family and seemed content to play without any emotion, looking like he was distracted by wondering about how long his wig would stay on for. Yeah that drummer was weird; something wasn’t quite right about him that’s for sure. I mean, WTF(?!), he looked spaced out. The bass player was a little better, but when compared to the frontman, there was no comparison. He was eccentric, talented on guitar, worked the crowd and even played the guitar with his shoe!

Well, whilst MaSh was trying his best to get everyone else into Lost Alone, I decided that it would be the ideal time to demonstrate to everyone that the ‘illuminator’ on my £7.95 watch from Argos did, in fact, work. What Los Havros hasn’t mentioned is that he jumped up and down, not unlike Archimedes, determined to show as many people as possible of his glorious discovery. I actually took it off during the interval after Lost Alone had finished because I didn’t want to hit anyone with it. This got more of a problem later on, more on that later. Anyway, as Lost Alone finished up I thought they were thoroughly decent, I might get their album some time. I know MaSh was even more impressed than I was by Lost Alone. Yeah, I thought they sounded excellent live, definitely brought to life by the frontman. It was his skill and enthusiasm which made the band as good as they were. They were heavier than Paramore and made some great sounds, especially for a trio. While not as rehearsed and ‘polished’ as the upcoming This Providence (so ‘gorgeous’) I still think they were the better warm up act.

At the time, the turn around between the acts seemed like a long time, especially dismantling the drum kit, but looking back, it might have been that we were simply over excited and the time passed more slowly than it actually did.

This Providence

This providence took to the stage and after a couple of minutes of making sure that their hair was alright, the songs started. Yeah, veeery stylish guys. The singer obviously loved himself, and the lead guitarist (the one on the left?) looked like a member of the Village People AND he was good at his day job. Anyway, the music, I thought they were as good as Lost Alone, probably on a par with them. I thought they were a lot more polished and practised than Lost Alone, but for some reason, their style and theatrics seemed more about them than the crowd, which slightly put me off. They were certainly good enough and are more likely to make the big time over Lost Alone, but I still preferred them over This Providence.

Waiting and waiting for Paramore to come on. The crowd started pushing like crazy at this point. This is where those idiots come in. They seemed determined to create a mosh pit, which was harsh on the small people. There was a lot of pushing and it was quite dangerous, and a few people (including me) hit the deck and that wasn’t fun. Some of the girls, especially the small ones were just getting crushed and the mosh pit didn’t help matters. But anyway, Paramore made an entrance and the place went nuts! There’s Hayley and ahhhhhhhhhh, all my dreams have come true.

Paramore

Like Los Havros, I too was in awe of Hayley’s voice and hotness especially live. What surprised me slightly was her normal speaking voice, which sounded very young (almost squeaky?) and it made me remember that she’s actually younger than I am. The fact that it doesn’t come across in the vocals in songs is further credit to her as a singer I suppose. Someone in the crowd had made a banner stating ‘Hayley, I’m Pregnant!!’ which was strange as, Hayley being a girl and the sign bearer being a guy, so, yeah. Hayley at this point tried to make a rude joke. Put it this way…not something I want to imagine. But it backfired spectacularly bwahahaahaaaa. Oh damn, I got thrown back into the mosh-pit, but at least I managed to elbow one of them. Paramore played a great set with songs both from their 1^st album, and their latest. Crushcrushcrush and Born For This were the highlights for me.

I think they played all the right songs, and thought that Here We Go Again and also agree that crushcrushcrush was great. It’s amazing to hear 300 people shouting 1,2,3,4 at exactly the right moment. The performance was every bit as good as I had hoped it was. Being there live, you appreciate (even more) just how talented this band is. Every member is truly brilliant and right on cue. Drums, vocals, guitars all spot on. The only bad thing is that they don’t tour the UK so often, and I think that the others in the crowd knew this as well, so it made it even more special to everyone.