Photo: Andy Sidders
For music fans of a certain age, it’s kind of a big deal seeing Taking Back Sunday. With the Roundhouse boasting a formidable crowd, it’s not a stretch to say the Long Island five-piece have stood the test of time.
After a fractured history of instability and line-up changes, the band’s classic line-up, with John Nolan and Shaun Cooper, is back for a second outing and the excitement, helped partly from an explosive set by The Marmozets, is palpable. After hurtling straight into the jagged riffs of ‘What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost’, frontman Adam Lazzara sways and swaggers, his grizzly mane of side-parted brown hair framing his eyes.
He looks at the near-Shakespearean setting and sighs, “This really is one of my favourite venues in the world and I’ve been fucking everywhere!".
Propelling into classic after classic, Nolan and Lazzara’s vocal waterfalls are as tight as days of old with their ranges ricocheting off each other in ‘A Decade Under The Influence’ and ‘Cute Without The ‘E’ (Cut From The Team)’. Transporting the crowd straight back to those long days of jumping in the river, drinking warm cider in the park and screaming ‘to hell with you and all your friends’ like a prayer. ‘Timberwolves At New Jersey’’s ragged staccato riffs see the night at its most punk, with the whole crowd shouting ‘I got the mic and you got the moshpit’ and transforming into one huge, bouncing, multi-headed creature.
Lazzara’s trademark microphone acrobatics are on top form here (evidently Nolans ‘mics are for singing not swining’ diss is long-forgotten) swinging it around with such reckless abandon you wonder he doesn’t hit himself in the head. Later, it’s hard to believe lead single from Happiness Is, ‘Flicker, Fade’ is only one album old the way the audience explodes and melodic verses see that sorrowful cracked voice cutting through the air like a foglight.
A charged, tidal-wave of a chorus gives the track an instant appeal that is as good as anything from their early material. New fan-favourite ‘Better Homes And Gardens’ is introduced as "a song about one of the worst times of my life...I really wasn’t sure if I should put it on there but it really helps me a lot so maybe there’s something in it that can help you too".
The raw and cutting refrain of "you'll never happy" is massively disarming, describing his ex-fiancee Chauntelle DuPree of Eisley breaking off his engagement. As the five-piece end with the killer that is ‘MakeDamnSure’ , it’s like there’s some kind of mass purification of the soul taking place. Everyone from those at the barriers to those high in the rafters are on their feet are hurling themselves forward and blasting imaginary foes at the top of their lungs:“I just wanna break you down so badly in the worst way".
The sheer unadulterated joy on people’s faces as the lights go up is something to behold as, drained, they all head out in the Camden rain. So much for this “emo revival”, tonight’s showcase of six albums worth of classics makes it glaringly obvious that Taking Back Sunday, at least, never went anywhere.
