New Found Glory @ Metropolis Fremantle
w/ Avastera
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Pop-punk juggernauts New Found Glory kicked off their almost sold-out Australian tour, celebrating their 20th Anniversary at Metropolis Fremantle. Despite recently releasing their ninth studio album Makes Me Sick the tour consisted of a setlist spanning the bands first six studio albums. Each capitol city was treated to two of these albums in their entirety, Perth getting their breakthrough albums, Sticks and Stones and Catalyst.
Opening the night was Perth’s own Avastera, a band growing in popularity both domestically and internationally, having toured with the likes of We The Kings, Mayday Parade and Forever the Sickest Kids. Performing songs off their debut and well-received EP, The Clocks Have Ticked Too Long (Produced by All Time Low and Yellowcard’s Paul Leavitt) and their second EP, Breathing Hope they set the tone for the night, belting out complex guitar passages at various tempos, with their new frontman Adrian Wilson delivering unique vocals with hints of The 1975.
The hard-hitting and fan favourite Understatement opened New Found Glory’s set, ripping through the venue as frontman Jordan Pundik (running the 00’s blonde hair tips), sprinted up and down the stage delivering an anthem featured at so many Vans Warped Tours in years gone by, sending the crowd into an immediate frenzy. Before the band had even started their second song The Great Houdini, lead guitarist Chad Gilbert had already been treated to two beers from punters in the crowd, setting the mood for what was one of the most out of control and blistering starts to a gig I’ve seen in recent memory.
Launching into All Downhill From Here had the crowd either singing along or being one of the many punters surfing on top of them, with a moshing crowd fuelled by the band’s ridiculously energetic onstage presence. With Pundik and Gilbert revealing themselves and the band had travelled 32 hours to get to Perth, explaining they had been enjoying Fremantle’s coffee strip since 6am that day (having not slept), it added to how impressive their copious amounts of energy throughout the gig was.
Throughout the massive two page set (featuring Sticks and Stones and Catalyst in their entirety) the band thanked the crowd for their support throughout the years, explaining they wouldn’t have been able to have released their ninth studio album, Makes Me Sick if it wasn’t for the overwhelming support they’ve received from their international fanbase.
The highlight of the night came with their popular track Failure Not Flattering off their fourth studio album, Catalyst. With Pundik delivering a studio quality vocal performance, with bassist Ian Grushka (uncharacteristically keeping his t-shirt on) in synch with Gilbert throughout with various head banging and youthful jumps and kicks, we questioned whether it was actually the band’s 20th Anniversary Tour and not one of their gigs from the early 00’s.
Finishing the night the band performed arguably their biggest track My Friends Over You, that saw the Florida natives finish where the band started, with vocals and instrumentals that would have easily found themselves on a live studio album. The quality, passion and professionalism from the band throughout the gig was something very few bands in the genre can execute so perfectly. Beforehand you would have been forgiven for preparing nostalgic thoughts of the band and their glory days, all of which quickly vanished with the band delivering a performance that resembled their youthful selves from more than a decade ago when they were headlining the Warped Tour in 2002. New Found Glory is certainly alive and well and will continue to promote the revival of pop-punk for years to come. Pop-punk clearly isn’t dead.
BEN DILLON
