 Today
is a good day in Birmingham, there’s still
a bit of the week’s sun left and tonight
one of Britain’s best pop/rock acts are
in town. Being an eager beaver and having to get
to the venue early for some interviews, I arrive
at 3 to find a queue bigger than any other I’ve
seen for a band, it was from the Ballroom all
the way to Scruffy Murphys which is a long way!
The cue is full of 14 year old girls, some of
which have been here since 7am this morning! After
doing my interviews I go outside and wait near
the entrance as I have to be in on time to catch
the first band.
The Skints, this 4 piece dub/reggae band from
London have a great summer feel about them. They
play a short but good set of about 5 songs all
with thumping bass, keys and a drummer who sings
(yes Phil Collins style), they’re unique,
a young band that plays great sounding reggae,
normally to see a reggae band you have to see
and old 70’s group. But they’re not
just copying the old school, they’re adding
a modern twist by mixing songs up with some rap
and some heavy beats. They’re a great start
to the night, I just hope that all these kids
go and listen to more dub because of them. They’re
touring in October so please go and check them
out.
 Next
up is Mayday Parade, they are a 5 piece alternative
rock band from Tallahassee, Florida. They Burst
into the small amount of stage they're allowed
to use and they jump around like crazy. All moshing
their heads whilst playing some really awesome
pop rock songs. This band had You Me At Six supporting
them in the states so it must be odd for them
to be supporting them. They have many years of
rocking under their belts and it shows, as they
work the crowd up in the small amount of time
they have on stage. To be fair though this crowd
would scream for anything that was on stage, they
may be young but they are here to have a good
time and this makes the band perform better, as
when the band hear the noise they try even harder.
It's a great cycle which is only going to continue
through the night. It comes to the last song of
their set and singer Derek spends it on the front
row of the barrier orchestrating everyone to sing
along whilst the rest of the band rock out and
break into the occasional solo.
 Kids
in glass houses have played this size of venue
on their own recent tours so it's rather odd there
supporting on this, but who cares you’re
getting more bang for your buck by getting these
welsh rockers thrown in! But what I find weirder
is that they only have half the stage like the
other supports as You Me At Six are hiding something
big behind the backdrop, when last time they toured
they had a full stage with big lighting props
and matching suits were as now they are playing
a small portion of the stage in their own casual
gear and I think its stepped them up a notch not
having the pressure of making sure their fans
go home happy as they’re not the headliners.
It's great they've gone back a step just for this
tour as they seem to be thriving of it by playing
their hearts out. Lead singer Aled can’t
stop moving, he paces up and down the stage getting
everyone psyched! They sound great, really well
done, levels are all correct and the vocals sound
as good as they do recorded. They play a long
set of all the hits covering new and old including,
Undercover Lover, Give Me What I Want and Animals.
They try and get the crowd doing circle pits but
as this isn't an old crowd (the oldest people
here are the parents in the back corner), it doesn't
work as planned, but they give it a go. The set
comes to a huge end with Maters At All, and the
crowd are all warmed up maybe even ready to go
home, but they won’t be leaving just yet
as the headline is still to come.
 You
Me At Six are waiting to come on, the stage has
been covered by a huge sheet and the crowd are
eagerly waiting with anticipation of the band
to come out and the sheet to be torn down. After
what seems like a lifetime of waiting, the speakers
start pumping out some big beats and the crowd
goes wild. The curtain drops to reveal a rather
underwhelming stage set up of the normal metal
crates for the band to stand on with a black cut
out with ramps and other levels for the band to
wander around. The most impressive thing is drummer
Dan being high up above the rest of the group;
it must be an odd sensation to play that high
up to a crowd of adoring fans. The band waste
no time and start off with Loverboy and they sound
great, the levels are perfect and they have spared
no expense making sure they sound good live. They
are well rehearsed and make great use of the stage
pacing from top to bottom climbing up the ramps
and using the metal grates so everyone can get
a good look at them. They definitely have rocking
out down to a formula and this is what I think
lets them down, they know what to do and when,
they know everything in and out, so there’s
hardly any room to be spontaneous. The only unique
thing I saw was everyone singing happy birthday
to drummer Dan in-between Take Of Your Colours
and Finders Keepers. There set list was mainly
from there new album but they did play 17 songs
and put on a good  show.
They even played the new song they wrote for Thorpe
Park ride The Swarm which was great if not a little
full off co2 gas that get bursting out blocking
peoples view from the front but making it look
amazing from the back as big clouds of gas flew
up into the air and moved around like a tornado.
They closed their set with Underdog, Stay With
Me and slightly heavier song to end with Bite
My Tongue, to which they left the stage under
darkness bowing out as they went.
Overall tonight’s gig was great, the bands
got better through the night up until You Me At
Six, but even with all their great stage set up
I don’t think they were as good as Kids
In Glass Houses who were belting tonight. Also
they missed a few singles that would have gone
down well, most noticeably Save It For The Bedroom,
but the crowd left in a good mood and they did
sound amazing, it was just a shame a few small
things let them down as a whole. I do however
look forward to seeing them go on to bigger things
and hopefully seeing them play as well as they
did tonight in an arena gig in the future.
The Skints – 3/5
Mayday Parade – 3.5/5
Kids In Glass Houses – 4.5/5
You Me At Six – 4/5
Review By James Daly
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