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The Astoria is a hub of activity this evening. Kids in Vans trainers and studded belts line the adjacent pavement, screaming and cheering and being dead excited because “Yay! Wicked! Simple Plan are playing tonight!" This is a 14+ gig. Great! These kids have been decorating the pavement since 3pm this afternoon – cheering and wooing. Back in the day, I was probably doing something similar for my fave bands (um on second thought, perhaps not). Tonight it’s an annoyance, mainly due to this time-space lapse; it takes me almost an hour to get into the venue – so I miss Kids in Glass Houses (the band I was most excited about seeing). Fuck queuing up since 3pm! That pet peeve aside, tonight was certainly surprising and not necessarily in a bad way.
From a furtive glance at the crowd, it seems Simple Plan are a bigger commodity these days than I’d give them credit for, remembering them most from their early Blink 182 inspired pop punk juvenility. Up until recently, I didn’t even know they were still going! Two successful albums later and they are still going, strong – it would seem.
‘Generation’ is certainly a force to be reckoned with. The crowd love it, singing along and shaking their emo hair. The band whip themselves into a frenzy on stage. ‘Shut Up!’ blasts from the shiniest amplifiers in the world, and the band are alive, and jumping up and down on stage, and singing their hearts out, and posturing and doing all those things that all the big bands do; saying, “Yeah you’re an amazing crowd!”, “Yeah man! Do what we say and clap!” - all the regular bullshit. But, though I really want to hate them, I just can’t; their energy is infectious! Even some of the older folk are jumping up and down, jingling their jangly bottoms along to the pop punk rifts. ‘Jump!’ follows and the entire crowd, unsurprisingly, jump! In the right places too! Oooh get you!
Assumed ‘Heart throb’, lead singer, Pierre Bouvier decides to sing us a little ditty about ‘London’ on his acoustic guitar. It’s a bit lame commenting on how hot the girls in London are; how he can’t afford to live here ‘cause the pound is ‘so fucking strong’. And such waffle…
During ‘Addicted’, Pierre shows his enthusiasm for ‘a-dick –tion’ by grabbing his ‘dick’ and making crotch thrusts at the audience. I must be getting old! The fifteen year old screaming girls in the crowd seem suitably impressed by this blatant exhibition of self love. ‘Welcome To My Life’ sounds borrowed from whoever writes Avril’s songs for her. Before newish single, ‘Your Love Is A Lie’, Pierre gets a little bit angry and screams “This song is about a bitch who cheated on me!” He seems to really mean it. ‘I Can’t Wait Forever’ is similarly saccharine.
Despite these shortcomings, it’s in their power, prowess and pop punk energy on songs like ‘God Must Hate Me’ and (my personal favourite) ‘I’d Do Anything’ (both from their debut) that win the crowd over. Similarly, the old school ‘Perfect’ is a suitable end to the evening’s entertainment; Pierre, sweating to pieces, dons an acoustic guitar and sings about his own imperfections. It’s actually quite sad (in the non-sarky sense). It seems like every fifteen year old girl, in the vicinity, is engraving Bouvier’s name on their hearts and waiting for him to look their way, desperately longing for someone that sensitive (note to self: must NOT mock the fans!). Pierre throws a towel drenched with his own sweat and tears into the crowd. Some ‘lucky’ girl is probably still clutching it desperately close to her heart. Where's the vom emoticon when you need it?!
To be fair, it is nice to go to a gig and still see kids so passionate and so involved with the music, come together to celebrate it with their idols. Despite my cynicism this evening, Simple Plan know how to put on a show and do their songs justice. Live, they are certainly better than I expected them to be, but since they’ve probably been on the road for the past five years they should be good really!
