New Found Glory at The Academy, Dublin, 12 November 2014

The godfathers of pop-punk, New Found Glory, returned to Dublin for the first time since the Kerrang Tour of February 2012. Given the October release of their most recent album, ‘Resurrection’, you would be forgiven for thinking that this was in support of this latest release. No so, apparently. This was actually the final leg of their “Pop Punk’s Not Dead” Tour which has been going since 2011. According to guitarist Chad Gilbert, they were due a few days off at home after their U.S. tour before coming to Europe, but then a promoter asked if they would come to Dublin so they did that instead. “So thanks to whatever promoter brought us over here, cos you guys are awesome”, enthused Chad. That’s right, MCD got a shout out from the stage. There’s a first time for everything. It also means that they go straight into another tour to promote the new album.

MCD changed the show to an all-ages performance in the week leading up to the concert, perhaps due to sluggish ticket sales, as there was plenty of extra space in the Academy on the night. Given that New Found Glory have been blasting out pop-punk for 17 years now, any of the under-agers at the show would barely have been born when NFG set out on their angst-ridden path.

From the off this was a high-energy show, as we have come to expect from NFG, songs and riffs coming at break-neck speed and continuing relentlessly for 90 minutes. Spurts of four or five songs bounced from one immediately into the next, interspersed with extended periods of crowd chat, mostly by Chad, and punctuated with lots of “F*** Yeahs!”. The band dipped in and out of the full back catalogue, with the first four songs in the set coming from four different albums.

There was certainly no faulting the band’s enthusiasm and energy with Jordan Pundik handing over vocal duties to the fans (Hit Or Miss) or getting a call and repeat going (Anthem For The Unwanted). Sporting shorts and t-shirts (or in the case of bass player Ian Grushka, just shorts) they were appropriately attired for the sauna like conditions in the Academy. When a circle pit is requested for Something I Call Personality those up the front are too delirious or wiped out to comply, but keep jumping around nonetheless.

Amid all the good humour and energy, however, it was impossible to ignore two factors that detracted from enjoying the show to the fullest: The first is the sound quality, with speakers that deployed waves of washed-out guitar distortion over a rumbling bass that only now and then managed to focus on a particular note. The other is the absence of second guitarist Steve Klein who left the band in 2013. It was somewhat surprising that he had not been replaced with a touring guitarist to fill out the NFG sound, which would have plugged some of the gaps between the recorded and live versions of the songs.

The Story So Far and My Friends Over You from ‘Sticks And Stones’, the album that sent them into the mainstream, finished out the main set without zero fanfare. Two minutes later the band reappeared for an encore with scarcely enough time for a “one more tune!” to be yelled. Sonny, Hold My Hand and All Downhill From Here close it out. They may be past their prime but these guys still love to work up a sweat, and so do their fans, whatever their age.