SHREDnews

By: Poppy Cleere

It’s that moment, just before a show begins, when everybody stops. The lights dim, the music is cut and the chatter dies as quick as a candle snuffed out. Every single eye grows wide and flicks to the stage and for that split moment every person in the room is still. From this moment on everything outside of the room is forgotten, we forget out troubles and we forget our ’status’ because for this next hour we are all the same. Everyone in the room is there for the same reason and the only thing that matters is the music.

Or at least that’s what I like to think.

It’s the September 7^th just after 9pm. The silence in Islington Academy stops as quickly as it began, broken by 800 individual voices screaming, roaring and shouting at the top of their lungs. In the darkness you can see five figures bounce onto the stage and get into their positions. Although it’s too dark to see any facial expressions, I’m completely sure that everyone in the room is wearing a huge smile, including the band who has just taken the stage: Paramore.

Just as the colored lights re-illuminate the room, the opening notes of hit single Misery Business kick in and the crowd goes wild. Lead singer Hayley Williams bounds forwards to greet the crowd as Josh Farro takes the lead on guitar, with Taylor York playing rhythm and Jeremy Davis playing the ever-so recognizable bass line. The extremely talented youngest member of the band, Zac Farro is bearing a face of pure concentration as he pounds the drums leading to the first verse. As Hayley opens her mouth to belt out the first line she finds that everyone in the room has beaten her to it – It’s really quite incredible how such a small crowd is managing to make so much noise! The crowd continued to join in every step of the way, they know every word and are only happy to oblige when asked to sing louder.

Without even pausing to stop for breath, the band jump into their next song: ‘For A Pessimist I’m Pretty Optimistic’ - the first track off their sophomore platinum-selling album Riot!. As the crowd reaches the last chorus ‘I never wanted to say this..’ you can’t help but get a feeling that the evening is going to be summed up in one word, and that word is ‘EPIC’.

Paramore then take a minute to introduce themselves even though I doubt there is one person in the room who doesn’t know who these five young musicians are. They talk about the last time they played the academy – almost three years ago on their first headlining tour – and I’m guessing everyone in the room, including the band, took a second to remember just how far they’ve come and how much they have achieved.

It’s then into a crowd favorite: ‘Pressure’, from their debut album All We Know Is Falling. Everyone is excitably waiting for Josh and Jeremy’s favorite stage trick, which always occurs just before the final chorus. Every camera is pointed at the middle of the stage when Josh steps backwards and hunches over and the crowd waits with baited breath as Jeremy bounces across the stage and flips right over Josh’s back, landing perfectly – without missing a note – to an eruption of applause and screams of approval. I doubt that Paramore fans will never grow tired of that moment.

Grinning from ear-to-ear, Hayley then introduces their next track and invites everybody to sing along – if they know the words of course. Zac begins the opening beats of new single ‘Ignorance’ and the crowd, once again, goes wild. Ignorance is the first taste anyone has gotten of the new album Brand New Eyes and for Paramore’s first performance of it in the UK, the crowd are keen to show their dedication by singing louder than ever before, and in turn almost drowning out Hayley’s voice completely.

It’s the next track; however, that really gets the fans excited. ‘Conspiracy’ from All We Know Is Falling has always been a fan favorite but in recent years has not made it to the set-list. It of course just had to make an appearance for this special night, much to the fans pleasure, and is a tribute to those who were at their show here three years ago. After so long it is incredible to see Paramore continue to play with such passion as if it really was three years ago. No matter how big their fan base gets or how much they’ve “changed” I truly hope they never lose that raw passion that makes Paramore one of the best live acts of recent years.

‘Crush Crush Crush’ marks just under half-way through the set, with their seventh song being a cover of ‘Long Distance Call’ by French band ‘Phoenix’. The band are due to play it live on French TV two days later and ask if they can test it out on the crowd, something that goes down very well. It’s not one of their usual covers, the sound is very different but they still manage to pull it off perfectly and the sound ends up suiting them very well.

We move onto a slightly slower song next, the deeply moving ‘When It Rains’ and the crowd seems to sing with as much passion and emotion as the song provokes, quite a beautiful moment to witness. To counter balance the last track, Paramore pick another track from their new album: the upbeat ‘Where The Lines Overlap’. This new track hasn’t been officially released (only live versions ripped from video can be found) which perhaps is why the band seem slightly nervous to see how the crowd reacts. Paramore fans, of course, are not ones to disappoint and sing each line back with gusto, much to the pleasure of the band.

It’s come to the final song of the evening, and continuing with the ‘epic’ theme the band ends with the extraordinary ‘Let The Flames Begin’. Josh and Zac begin the slightly changed opening riff and beats, followed closely by Jeremy, Taylor and Hayley who join in one by one. It’s the live outro that everyone has been waiting for and Paramore does not disappoint. Josh stands illuminated by a spotlight to begin the solo and jumps up into the air as everyone else joins in; Jeremy throws himself around the stage completely in the moment as Zac plays his heart out on the raised platform behind. The crowd seems to be feeding the band this incredible energy and Taylor drops to the floor, his arms outstretched as Hayley begins to sing ‘Oh Father’. As the final notes ring out you can’t help but feel it wasn’t only the band that performed that last song, it was the whole room. It’s as if the power of the song has temporarily drained each member of the audience, again something incredible to witness.

That wasn’t really the end of the night, however, and after the crowd has made enough noise to be heard from space Paramore jump back out on the stage, re-energized and ready to play their second single from Brand New Eyes – the beautiful ‘Brick By Boring Brick’. Even though the song (like ‘Where The Lines Overlap’) had not been officially released, it had leaked onto YouTube just one week before the show. Hayley seems doubtful that many will know the words and tells the crowd that if they don’t know them just to “make as much noise as you can”. Once again however Islington surprises the band by knowing every single word and singing it extra loud just to prove it, you can see by their faces that they didn’t expect such a brilliant response.

I was rather disappointed that they decided to end the set with ‘Decode’ from the Twilight Soundtrack as I’d hoped they would end the night with something extra special, not something that was written about fictional characters. I of course -like anyone else who thought the same- should have had a bit more faith in Paramore’s consideration of their fans, as when I reached the door I heard something that I had only ever heard on a muffled YouTube video. It was the much talked about and truly spectacular Miracle Outro only played live once before. Paramore had ended the show perfectly and as they took their bows I was mixed with a feeling of awe and a feeling of sadness as I thought about those who weren’t here and probably wouldn’t get to see Paramore in such an intimate setting as this again. We were all truly lucky to be there. Thank you Paramore.

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