Tonight A need to prove themselves. Having had big anthemic hits like 'Nothing' and 'Starbucks' and then bursting back into the UK music scene with an overall heavier sound with the new single 'Rush Song', A need to pull something out of the bag to help bring them back into our lives.
But first, there's the much-hyped Instruction to nod along to. And nod along we do! Armed with a lead singer who looks like sometimes even sings like Adam Lazzara from Taking Back Sunday, they rip down barriers between conventional hardcore and elements of retro rock in their music. Lead singer Arty throws himself around the stage and on set closer 'Your Punk Sucks' (introduced by Arty as a song "very relevant to our time"), he throws himself into the crowd and gets them to shout along to the self explanatory lyrics. Overall, Instruction are great tonight and they clearly love to play live, go see them now before the masses of floppy hairstyles and converse all stars engulf them into the emo black hole.
After a long delay, resulting in a clapping session from the crowd, we are greeted by the boys from down south, bleached hair and all. The opener and latest single 'Rush Song', leaves us all feeling why we ever doubted A. With a sound like a cross between Jane's Addiction's 'True Nature' and Muse's 'Stockholm Syndrome', this new piece of rock / psychedelic / metal will blow your mind and make you want to pogo, it certainly has that affect on the crowd tonight anyway. What can follow that, you ask? Just the band's biggest hit, that's all. 'Nothing' sends the whole room into a jumping head bashing frenzy. Alright the lyrics might not be very poetic "Gimme some love! Gimme some skin! If we ain't got that, then we ain't got much and we ain't got nothin' NOTHIN!!!!". But that's the reason why this venue is sold out tonight. The fans don't come to see A for meaningful lyrics, they come to have a good time. Which predictably leads me onto the stand out from the night 'Good Time', see what I did there?. This track is the complete highlight from the night. Crowd surfers galore get put on the stage and run off the other end throughout the song and the band don't even seem to notice. The new songs played tonight are interesting enough. They can't be described as anything particularly new, expect for perhaps the volume of the songs. The crowd lap it up though. Lead singer Jason Perry shows plenty of energy throughout and doesn't let up with his vocals, overall, he pushes himself to limit.
