Five days before Christmas when the majority of the country is more broke than usual is probably not the greatest time to be playing a gig, but three American pop-punk/hardcore bands hit the Academy 2 this Wednesday to end their long European tour, and by the sounds of it long year of touring in general.
Transit kicked things off at the earlier than usual time of 6:30, possibly further decreasing the size of the crowd with town chock-a-block with Christmas shoppers. They set the tone nicely for the rest of the evening. This type of music isn’t for everyone. The sound is raw and vocals are by no means pitch-perfect, but it works. The atmosphere is quite somber, perhaps due to the early start, or the bar not being open but the Boston band played through a host of energetic songs including songs from their new album ‘Listen & Forgive’
Next up were Balance & Composure who were a different prospect completely. The five-piece from Pennsylvania have a grunge influence, with most songs starting off slow and melodic before kicking into heavy riffs and screaming vocals that has everybody’s heads nodding (not quite banging). As the set went on, the slower parts became a bit repetitive for me but every time a song kicked back in my attention was regained instantly. If you’re looking for something a bit different to listen to, their début full-length ‘Seperation’ is definitely worth a listen.
Headliners Title Fight took to the stage and instantly began racing through song after song, at times with no gap in between making it hard to work out when one song ended and another began. For the other two bands it seemed the months of touring had caught up on them and energy levels were a little bit low, but Title Fight came out swinging and kept a frenetic pace for the duration of their set. For the last three songs, the crowd kicked into life as well, with crowd surfers squeezing into the very small gap between the crowd and the ceiling before being quickly hauled down and thrown out with a lack of festive spirit by the lone security man.
My wish of a pop-punk version of a Christmas song wasn’t granted and with all the bands done by 9pm, the crowd began to make their way towards whatever Christmas parties were on that night.