Alright, no crap about feeling 16 again.
We can admit it. We’re all allowed our weaknesses; for every semblance of morose, ingenius songwriting that we seek out in an attempt at improving our assumed intellect and a refinement of feeling we are all pop music fans. Most of the time we tell ourselves that our younger years were filled with more sophisticated pop than – with begrudging exceptions – the following teenage demographics are experiencing. That’s the fallacy of getting older; we convince ourselves our youths were more golden.
It’s not true, of course, but who can fault us for our bias? For everyone here The Get Up Kids played a key role in that adolescent transition period. Now with hindsight we know that Matt Pryor’s lyrics are more jumbled rhymes than sophisticated metaphors, that ‘Eudora’ was a label cash-in that incidentally turned out to be pretty good, and deep-down we should all be mildly concerned that the band members are now a good deal closer to 32 than 22. But tonight isn’t meant to be about now. Cynics could point out that this supposed Anniversary reunion tour (2009 marks the 10-year milestone for breakthrough album ‘Something to Write Home About’) is arbitrary and more about a band falling back on what was successful, since none of the members’ side-projects have garnered much interest since the initial split in 2005. Indeed, the band have rarely played to a larger audience on these shores than at tonight’s sold-out 1000-capacity Electric Ballroom show, so evidently they’ve made the right decision, at least financially.
Solitary support band Spy Catcher arrive early to a receptive crowd, though it’s not until third song ‘Good Times’ that the band hit their stride, the blending of Steve Sears’ throaty, early Springsteen-cum-Tom Gabel vocals and mid-90s emo-rock chords hitting on a jubilant, nostalgic sound that’s exactly what we’re expecting from tonight’s headliners. From then on in there’s a surprising degree of melodic punk-rock nuance from a group whose main claim to fame is as Gallows’ bassist’s ‘other’ band. ‘Music That My Dad Likes’ sounds like ‘Higher Ground’ by the Chilis with its rubbery-bass and Sears’ dedications to The Get Up Kids are curiously affecting, mainly thanks to his cockney accent. Spy Catcher fit tonight’s M.O, quirkily, just great.
Looking around me I can see people from Australia. People from South Africa. Two bleach-blonde Japanese girls. 99.99% of the population may not have a clue who The Get Up Kids are – including those enquiring about the queue outside the venue tonight – but tonight is a pilgrimage for many. No time for introductions, though; the fivesome walk onstage with peculiarly apathetic expressions and casually break into evergreen classic ‘Coming Clean’ as if this were just another show. It shouldn’t be; halfway through the technically flawless first half of the main set guitarist Jim Suptic asks how many people have come from out of town and a resounding 9/10s of the audience cheer. Thankfully by this point they seem to have left the blasé attitude behind; whilst there’s little of the wild abandon that characterised the band’s early shows we’re still treated to an on-form Matt Pryor vocal performance, scaling the yearning cries of ‘Holiday’ (the best song Blink-182 could’ve written had they traded the smart-ass for some earnest) with aplomb. Question is, why isn’t he breaking a sweat?
The fact is everything’s here: all the band’s biggest non-hits with prevalence given to Something to Write Home About material. For those gathered it still feels like a once-in-a-lifetime event, mainly because we’re the ones instigating it. Bookish types and skinheads have their arms over each others’ shoulders, pogoing repeatedly to the likes of ‘Mass Pike’ and the stellar, classical baroque-pop of ‘The One You Want’, and for a good part of the set the rapport between band and crowd is palpable, a throbbing sea of sweaty worship.
About halfway through the set, without pause for introduction and no ensuing explanation, the band play what must be their first new song in half a decade: Rob Pope’s cyclical bassline runs through what sounds like a natural progression from ‘Guilt Show’’s more serious moments, James Dewees occasional keys the highlight, as ever. Though not terrible, it saps the energy right out of the room, leaving ‘Red Letter Day’ a casualty in its wake before the aforementioned ‘Mass Pike’ rallies the crowd again. But so much of the rest of the set feels like a come-down from that opening half, a punctured euphoria, though with no obvious difference in performance quality. It’s just as well, though, since it throws up the best moments of 2003’s ‘On a Wire’ just when the audience are most in need of respite; the title track’s twinkling late-night guitar blues are sweetened by the Japanese girl’s note-perfect rendition in my right ear and ‘Campfire Kansas’ proves Suptic’s moment to shine; hard to believe the album was essentially panned on release.
After a saccharine-sweet ‘Out of Reach’ the encore begins with the by-now expected cover of ‘Close to Me’ by The Cure and a faithfully shambolic Replacements homage in ‘Beer for Breakfast’, a reminder that the band’re pretty adept with other people’s songs, but it’s left to old favourite ‘Don’t Hate Me’ to stir things back up again, geeky kids crowdsurfing and balls-in-a-vice screaming to the hilt whilst Pryor keeps himself just-so-slightly more withdrawn. It’s a reminder that, yes, even if some of us aren’t, The Get Up Kids are at least a little self-conscious about this material. Can the new stuff really hold its own, especially when the reception of last album ‘Guilt Show’ was pretty much universal apathy, or should some things remain in the past with the occasional dig up for nostalgia? As Pryor would probably put it, ‘one night doesn’t mean the rest of my life’.
The Get Up Kids played:
Coming Clean
Action and Action
The One You Want
Holiday
Valentine
Woodson
Close to Home
Keith (New Song)
Red Letter Day
Mass Pike
Campfire Kansas
Holy Roman
No Love
I’m a Loner, Dottie, a Rebel
Walking On a Wire
———————
Out of Reach
Close to Me
Beer for Breakfast
Don’t Hate Me
I’ll Catch You
10 Minutes
Spy Catcher: 7/10
The Get Up Kids: 7/10
