Yellowcard, Taking Back Sunday, et The Click Five

Yellowcard’s debut Ocean Avenue came out over 10 years ago! There’s a lot to catch up on but with them still making new music and being one of the best live bands, Yellowcard are a band you need to know about. ‘Ocean Avenue’ and ‘Light Up The Sky’ are probably the songs you are most likely to have heard of, although they may be from sometime ago. When the band got back together after a break of several years, new music was soon to follow with the fantastic ‘When You’re Through Thinking Say Yes’ and the newest album ‘Southern Air’ featuring one of my personal favourites: ‘Here I Am Alive’. They perform a great mix of songs, both old and new in each setlist and really bring the crowd alive, whether at a festival or at one of their headlining shows, leaving everyone smiling, wanting more and remembering why Yellowcard have been around for so long; it doesn’t get much better than this. Fans of Yellowcard come in all shapes and sizes, those who’ve been with them for 10 years and those introduced there and then, but all can come together and go crazy for a night of fun, thanks to these great guys from California and next time, we hope to see you there!

Emo stalwarts Taking Back Sunday are titans of the live circuit. Hailing from Long Island, NYC, the five-piece rockers built a veritable platoon of fans through the energy, dedication and enthusiasm of Adam Lazzara & Co. – and that's a facet of the band, fifteen years deep into their career, that isn't showing any cracks, or any signs of waning in the slightest.
Peppered with bona fide tunes like “Cute Without The E (Cut From The Team)”, “Great Romances Of The 20th Century”, “MakeDamnSure”, “A Decade Under The Influence” and “Timberwolves At New Jersey”, their sets are eclectic masterclasses in pop-punk and emo-rock. Sodden with emotion – obviously a steadfast hallmark – they bound and leap and gallop and screech across the stage, with Lazzara whipping his mic (he famously knocked out their former guitarist a few years ago), and jumping into the crowd with vigour. They're surprisingly down-to-earth fellas, which, for a band renowned for being white-hot sex symbols, is a commodity indeed. If you're looking for a frenetic, sweat-inducing two hours of shoutalong entertainment, Taking Back Sunday will deliver on all fronts. These aren't shows for sitting at the back or standing and doing the awkward head-bob foot shuffle combo.

Energetic. Captivating. Inspiring. These are just three words that could be used to describe a live performance from The Click Five. Starting as a college band playing at nearby venues, the boys soon found themselves recording demos and touring locally when they caught the eye of a talent scout. In 2005, the band released their debut album, not knowing that this would be the first of three albums they would see materialise within the next five years. Their most successful single, “Just The Girl”, was featured in the well-known movie “John Tucker Must Die”, starring Brittany Snow and Sophia Bush, and maintained its spot as the No. 1 most-downloaded song on iTunes for over two weeks. Standing in a crowd of screaming fans, the first thing to catch the attention of any viewer’s eye is their smart suit and tie ensemble, complete with matching mop-top haircuts. But this sharp visual image is quickly altered when Kyle Patrick races to the front of the stage, throwing himself into a vigorous guitar solo, while Joey Zehr strikes his drum kit and flips his hair like there’s no tomorrow. I felt my stomach spin with excitement as the wave of fans I was now a part of rose and fell with the band as they jumped to the blaring beat of “Jenny”. As the night ended and they gave one last strum of their guitars and a wave goodbye, I stood for a moment, taking in the thrilling atmosphere and knowing there weren’t many artists that could match a night like that.