LIVE: Mayday Parade @ Manchester Academy.
- Kristal Harpur
- Oct 14, 2017
- 3 min read
Photos: Jack Barker.
Its hard to believe that 10 years ago Mayday Parade released their first album A Lesson in Romantics. With the loyal support of their fans, an anniversary tour was welcomed and has proved a success along with support from All Get Out and With confidence. All Get Out from South Carolina played the Manchester Academy for the first time during their inaugural trip to the UK. Making a good impression with the level of confidence they entered the stage with, which continued throughout their set with great energy and focus. They hit the ground running not stopping to talk to the audience until after the 4th song but that didn’t stop the crowd bouncing, with a few singing along too. Making jokes about singing
Wonderwall and commenting on how great the audience had been Nathan Hussey, Lead singer and guitarist, knew how to please the crowd and keep the them entertained while the other band members retuned their instruments.
Soon followed With Confidence who were returning to the UK after a busy summer schedule and co-headlining with Set It Off earlier this year. As soon as the band began to play Voldemort the crowd were instantly engaged and the quad from Sydney’s stage presence was confident for the venue size. Jayden Seeley’s vocals were strong throughout the set as were the backing vocals from Inigo Del Carme. Joshua Brozzesi seemed immersed in the beat with consistent drumming and energetic movements. Getting some serious air on his jumps, Luke Rockets maintained enormous amounts of energy throughout the whole set. After the 3rd song Archers the band then introduced themselves and talked to the crowd. At this point, someone threw a daisy chain head band onto the stage which started some jokes about it being a sex toy making most of the crowd laugh and showing good chemistry between the band members before moving on to Godzilla. They played Higher for the first time on the tour and it went down well with the crowd.
After a slightly longer pause than normal Mayday Parade from Tallahassee, Florida entered the Manchester Academy stage in darkness to a welcoming roar from the crowd to begin the fifth night of an eleven date UK tour. They followed the album A Lesson in Romantics order pretty much the whole way through the set making a few changes towards the end, throwing in a cover of Punk Rock Princess by Something Corporate.
The backdrop to the stage featured the album cover for A Lesson in Romantics throughout the whole gig. There was a lack of spotlights to start off with but plenty of colour and movement from the other lights. All of the band members made use of the whole stage from start to finish, without any hint of being nervous. Derek Sanders on lead vocals didn’t disappoint with his expected hair flips during nearly every song. The co-vocals from Jeremy Lenzo, bass player and Jake Bundrick, drummer were faultless throughout songs such as Black Cat and Miserable At Best. Alex Garcia played up to the crowd in When I Get Home You’re So Dead urging them on to sing along and jump.
The crowd’s excitement at the start of every song shows how relevant the songs from A Lesson in Romantics are 10 years on. As soon as Sanders started Miserable at Best on the keyboard the whole room went crazy and every single word was sung loud! He couldn’t stop smiling throughout the song due to the crowd’s reaction during the entirety of the performance. After a few more songs they took a moment to talk about the support bands and then later on made a heart-warming speech about how everyone matters and how it
doesn’t matter about sexuality or race etc which gained a very positive response from the whole room.
After the cover of Punk Rock Princess, they finished the set with 3 songs off other albums which received the same amount of excitement as the rest of the set. Lighters and torches were held high during Terrible Things with all stage lights off apart from a spotlight on Sanders, effective mood lighting. The rest of the band joined to complete the song which was finished with a pick toss into the crowd.
Of course, they had to come back for an encore playing Oh Well, Oh well which seemed to have the loudest vocals from Sanders all night. The venue was over 2/3 full for Mayday Parades set and they promised to be back again for another anniversary tour in 10 years’ time!
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