Review by: Craig McDonnell
Photos by: Shannon Purcell
Saturday night, The Academy and ‘metal-ish’ (What? I can make up genres if I want to) band A Day to Remember are the headline act. This isn’t your typical Saturday night gig though, as the bar is closed and all ages are allowed in. This is because, for some reason, A Day to Remember have an astonishingly large underage following, roughly 80% of the completely sold out crowd wouldn’t be getting in anywhere else in town tonight.
First up on the night were Dublin band Storyboard. Unforunately my tactic of having a pint instead of queuing up with kids resulted in me missing their set, but from talking to others they seemed to have put in a solid performance.
Main support came from San Diego band Pierce the Veil. I had heard good things about this band, which contains two brothers, Vic and Mike Fuentes. Their music never really grabbed me but their was no faulting their energy on stage. Not a song went by without a guitar being flipped around a full 360 degrees before being caught again flawlessly and carrying on playing. The kids, and it has to be said some of the older people around me seemed to be loving it but for some reason I just wasn’t feeling it.
This was A Day to Remember’s second time playing here, having played Whelans in 2009. Lead singer Jeremy McKinnon mentions this on stage, remarking on their clear rise in popularity in the last 2 years. Their set contained a mix of songs from all four of their albums. Starting the set with the furious “2nd Sucks”, they kept the high tempo going throughout the 16 song initial set. One of the main reasons I listen to this band is their metal breakdowns, which the majority of their songs contain. However, I often wondered to myself if they could pull them off live. The answer? A resounding yes. Every song was played pretty much perfectly and the crowd, big and small, lapped every second of it up.
There was enough time left, as usual, for the 3 song encore. However, to break from the norm, only 2 members came out for the first of these songs with acoustic guitars to play one of the bands rare slow songs, ‘If It Means A Lot To You’, the first time the song has ever been played outside of the USA. With two songs to go, it was time for perhaps their most popular song; ‘The Downfall of Us All’. Ending with ‘The Plot To Bomb The Panhandle’, the band promised to be back soon and sent the whole crowd home happy.