Holy crap Paramore!

Paramore played at WaMu Theater last night along with Relient K and fun. Like the last two nights, I missed the first opener (fun in this case), but saw the second two performances.

Relient K took me back to high school. I think if you looked up the definition of "pop/punk" you'd find a picture of Relient K. Actually, maybe they'd be the example for the Christian subcategory. They did have a few songs that were interesting, but I think those were mostly their older stuff (and their set closer). I don't know their discography well enough to say with any real assurance, though. And I mean, even though the performance wasn't anything particularly special, didn't make it un-fun to watch.

Paramore, though...they were way more than I expected! Haley Williams came on stage headbanging and pretty much never let up. At one point, she lied down in front of Taylor York, and he bent over a little so Jeremy Davis could do a backflip over them! It was totally unexpected and totally ridiculous! Of course, York and Davis were still playing while this was happening, too. Amazing.

It was also pretty awesome that Williams interacted with the audience so much. Even though it was in a huge venue, she didn't treat the audience like we were just watching or like we weren't important. There was a person with a "Haley marry my son" sign, and she took time out of the set to comment on it (something along the lines of "That's flattering, but marriage is way down the road for me. Maybe I'll go to prom with you. That's a little more my age group."). She also brought up a balloon sword that someone had to get all the band members to sign it, and accepted a shirt with "Team Zac" written on it and hung it on the bass drum for the rest of the set (or at least until it fell off).

The set (stage, background, etc...not music) isn't something I usually pay attention to, but with Paramore it mattered. When they came on, they had a sheet with their older logo on it. Then right as they started their performance of "Ignorance" (I think...I don't remember. It must have been their first Brand New Eyes song, though), the sheet dropped away revealing their new logo. And then during the encore, that dropped away giving yet another change of scenery.

Speaking of the encore, it was definitely the highlight of the show. Paramore played "Decode" and "Misery Business" and right before the bridge of the latter, Williams stopped singing to talk to us. But since the rest of the band was still playing, the crowd kept singing and made it through the bridge before letting her speak. I'm pretty sure we surprised her because she was about to talk and then said, "Oh, you guys know this part. You sound great, Seattle," and let us finish. And then she talked about how they met a fan during their meet and greet before the show that claimed to know all their songs on guitar. And gave him the chance to prove it. They brought him up and gave him Josh Farro's guitar and had the fan play the lead guitar part for the rest of the song. It was very exciting...and he nailed it! After they finished the song, Paramore just kept banging on their instruments for at least 15 minutes while getting rid of all their picks, water bottles, drumsticks, and what looked like song sheets or something...I couldn't quite tell, and just generally having fun with themselves. Definitely one of if not the most fun concert I've ever been to.

Flyleaf :)

Flyleaf played with 10 Years and Fair to Midland at Showbox Market last night. As on Monday, I missed Fair to Midland's performance. But whereas on Monday, it was because we were hungry and didn't care about Neon Trees, last night, Fair to Midland just started earlier than I expected them to, so we arrived right as they finished up instead of as they were starting.

So we started the night off with 10 Years. They were definitely enjoyable, but the crowd was distractingly rowdy. I'm not a huge fan of mosh pits, and that's what the whole front half of the floor turned into. The band was infectiously energetic, though, which was a nice change of pace from Leto's "All right now everybody jump" from the night before. They managed to get everyone excited without specific instructions, which is what a show should be. My friend decided the bassist could have been less conceited, but I didn't think it detracted from the performance. I rather enjoyed that he used the whole stage.

Then Flyleaf came on stage. The performance was fun. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary. That's not to say it was boring, but there wasn't really anything specific to mention. They did manage to keep the crowd under control, though. I think there was a point where people started moshing again, and Lacey Mosley just asked everyone to move forward so they didn't have room for the moshing.

Pat Seals almost felt like he didn't fit as part of the band. He looks...scarier...than everyone else. But he was also the most entertaining person to watch as a result, although Lacey had a good stage presence, too, what with her amazingly powerful voice and the comparatively small stage (as compared to Neumos).

The "encore" made the concert, though. After Flyleaf finished their set, they left the stage, but no one left the venue. There were chants of "one more song!" and endless cheering. Eventually, some people started trickling out, but a large portion of the crowd stuck around. Lacey and Sameer had to come back out to explain that they don't ever do real encores and weren't expecting to come out, so they had nothing lined up. But of course, they couldn't come back out just to say that and leave, so Lacey and Sameer played us an acoustic song. Pretty sure that was what one would call an "overwhelming crowd response." That encore definitely made ME feel special, anyway :)

Mutemath is even amazing when they're not headlining!

Last night I went to Showbox SoDo to see MUTEMATH and 30 Seconds to Mars and skipped Neon Trees.

The 30 Seconds to Mars performance was subpar. Jared Leto seems like a jacka**. He's really full of himself and the show centered around him. I will say that it was kinda cool of him to scold the security guard for trying to get people off each others' shoulders, though. And props to him for specifying that they wouldn't go off and come back on for an encore, and instead just finishing the set outright.

But most of the show was him telling the audience what to do, except apparently he thought we could only do two things: 1) jump, 2) scream. It got old really fast. There was also a bit in the middle of the show where he somehow got to the where the sound engineer is in the middle of SoDo and he played an acoustic "set." I say "set" because he played half of about 4 different songs and then played an acoustic first half of "The Kill" and then made his way back to the stage where the band played the rest of the song.

MUTEMATH, on the other hand, didn't perform like openers. I went into that performance expecting them to play, finish, and get off, but I felt like they were headlining! Paul Meany even passed around his weird electronica/guitar thingy and the band threw out all their drumsticks, etc. at the end of their set. Of course, they didn't have time for a proper "Reset" encore, but they still played "Reset" and merged it into "Typical." The entire band was bursting with energy the entire time they were on stage, and even my friend, who generally doesn't like performances where he doesn't know any of the songs, enjoyed himself.