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Review |
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Tonight is the last night of Alkaline Trio’s
2month long UK tour and happens to be the second
of a double whammy of shows at the Koko in Camden
London, and hours before the doors are due to open
at 7pm the queue is quite massive spiralling around
the building, but it looks like a good handful or
more people have been waiting there pretty much
all day for the very much delayed meet and greet
with Alkaline Trio.
After hours of waiting and watching a power made
jobs worth come up on far too many occasions holding
his bunch of keys and telling the fans to queue
closer to a wall because they are blocking up
a public highway which they weren’t nowhere
near blocking up, the doors were finally open
and everyone was allowed in.
The Koko is a very nice venue, when you first
walk in you get the feeling that you are walking
onto a aeroplane as it has that same kind of tunnel
walkway, but once you walk through it you actually
get to see how big and nice the venue is, the
whole venue is decked out in red and black paint,
the venue is very tall with balconies going all
the way to the top so fans can watch the show
from high up, at the very middle top of the venue
there is a big disco ball hanging and spinning
around which I hope never falls down as its big
enough to cause a lot of damage. It’s safe
to say that the Koko is the perfect venue for
Alkaline Trio due to the red and black nature
of the venue which is pretty much Alkaline Trio’s
favourite colours and sits well with their logo,
also I would say the venue is perfect replacement
venue for the Astoria which sadly closed down
recently, so fingers crossed we should see more
bands play here in the future.
 The first band on tonight were Broadway Calls,
they took to the stage at 7.30pm and played a
30minute and it was one hell of a powerful set,
they are three guys who love to listen to and
play poppy punk music and they do it to the best
of their ability and they have really good stage
presence with drummer Josh going mental bashing
the hell out of drums which such power and passion,
Guitarist and vocalist Ty Vaughn has a great set
of vocals and plays his guitar so well, whilst
bassist and other vocalist Matt Koenig has an
even more powerful voice than that of Ty and spends
the majority of the set jumping, running and pretty
much using up a lot of energy on stage. A lot
of songs from the band’s debut album ‘Oregon’
were played tonight such as ‘Van Rides And
High Tides’, ‘Suffer The Kids’
etc, but the main highlight was when they played
‘Bad Intentions’ and ‘Call It
Off’ back to back, the energy displayed
on stage during these two songs was immense and
then they went on to finish with ‘Back To
Oregon’ before leaving the stage. Broadway
Calls got a really good reception, they started
playing when the room was very empty and by the
time they came off stage the room was pretty much
full and everyone was buzzing with the energy
that these guys created. Now bands like Blink
182 and Green Day are back on the horizon I feel
if they ever need a support band, they won’t
go wrong in Broadway Calls.
 After
Broadway Calls we headed to the bar to get a drink
during the 20minute wait it was for The Audition
to take to the stage and this where my only negative
comment about the Koko came in, we ordered a pint
of beer, but instead was giving a can poured into
a pint glass that nowhere near filled the top of
the glass, and they we were charged £3.90,
yes £3.90 for a single standard sized can
of Fosters , now if that wasn’t called rape
on the wallet then I don’t know what is.
 The lights finally dimmed and The Audition took
to the stage, this time around they come across
a lot better than what they were in Birmingham,
but somehow the crowd are not liking it with many
people giving The Audition big boo’s which
was very unjustified as they tried their best
and did put on a good show, but the downside to
The Audition is that they sound very much like
a poor man’s Panic At The Disco! And also
seem to nick other people’s riffs and music
within their own which really isn’t going
to do them any favours. On the plus side the band
played some fan favourite songs such as ‘Warm
Me Up’, ‘Dance Halls Turn To Ghosts’,
‘Basebhat’, and the few people that
were in the crowd to see The Audition seemed to
really enjoy it, the set finished with Josh Franceschi
from You Me At Six taking to the stage for a bit
of guest vocals whilst prancing all over the stage
like the energetic man he is, as the song finished
The Audition front man Danny Stevens threw his
microphone down and stormed off stage and you
can’t really blame the man especially after
how hard they tried and the bad reception they
got.
 After a 30minute wait of changing equipment around
the headline act Alkaline Trio took to the stage
which was met with loud screams from the 1000’s
of fans that are in the packed out Koko tonight,
the band started off the set in the same fashion
as they have done during the whole of the tour
with playing ‘Calling All Skeleton’,
‘Private Eye’ and then ‘I Lied
My Face’, just by hearing these three songs
I knew we were in for a good night as the sound
was so much better than it was in Birmingham just
over a week ago and the overall atmosphere was
so much better, it just shows what a difference
a half empty and packed out venue can make to
a gig.
Tonight Alkaline Trio have a big banner at the
back of the stage which looks very similar to
the writing inside the limited edition copy of
their latest album ‘Agony And Irony’,
it looks good and it’s another element of
a classic gig in the making. The only downside
I would say is that bassist Dan Andriano really
didn’t look and feel the part tonight he
was dressed with a gray tea cosy style hat on
his head and spent the majority of the set swaying
back and forth which to me didn’t come across
ideal for a man who should be on a high playing
his last show of their UK tour at a packed out
venue, luckily this didn’t affect his performance
as everything he did was spot on. Derek Grant
on the other hand seemed to be having the time
of his life bashing his drum kit all about. And
front man Matt Skiba spent a lot of the night
interacting with the crowd and put on a performance
which could easily have been the best performance
of the tour.
 Alkaline Trio went on and played a lot of their
classics such as ‘Cringe’, ‘I
Found Away’, All On Black’ and even
‘Mercy Me’ which is the first time
I have heard them play it out of the three times
I have seen them on this tour so that was one
of the surprise highlights of the show.
One of the most moving moments of the show was
when front man Matt Skiba dedicated ‘Goodbye
Forever’ to the late Jerry Finn and gave
a nice speech about all the fantastic work Jerry
has done in the past, Alkaline Trio then went
on to play the song with raw passion sounding
as punk as ever.
 The last song of the night before the encore
was ‘This could Be Love’ which went
down extremely well with the majority of the Koko
singing along, the band then left the stage for
a short time before Matt came back on a played
a stunning acoustic version of ‘Blue In
The Face’ before the band rejoined him for
them to rock out with their usual set finisher
‘Radio’ which had the whole of the
Koko signing and swaying along.
Overall tonight’s show was amazing, Broadway
Calls started things off in good fashion, The
Audition tried to carry it on but got brought
down by many select immature people in the crowd
who didn’t even give them a chance, whilst
Alkaline Trio picked things up and totally rocked
out playing one of the best shows I have ever
seen them play which is some achievement as after
all this was Alkaline Trio show number 9 for me.
Broadway Calls 5/5
The Audition 3.5/5
Alkaline Trio 5/5
Review By Trigger |
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| Alkaline
Trio |
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| The
Audition |
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| Broadway
Calls |
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| Band
Related Links |
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| Review
Score Code |
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- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
-
What Was That? |
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