LIVE REVIEW: The Wonder Years @ O2 Forum Kentish Town, London
It’s the final night of THE WONDER YEARS UK tour celebrating the 10th anniversary of their album No Closer To Heaven, rounding off their tour with their biggest UK headline show to date at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town.
Opening the night is GULLY BOYS from Minneapolis, with this tour being their first opportunity to play in the UK, tonight is their first ever London show. Taking to the stage as the crowd is filling up the venue. While for many this is their first introduction to the band you can still spot a few people singing along. With a loud and punchy set they perfectly introduce who they are and what they are all about. Highlight of the set was their song Murderapolis which with recent news feels more relevant than ever. The band have not only completed their goal of warming the crowd up they will most definitely be leaving the night with a few more fans.
Rating: 8/10
Up next is a band the crowd will be a lot more familiar with, FREE THROW, who have toured with THE WONDER YEARS in the past. While they are a band that has been able to play the UK a lot more frequently, they mention how tonight’s show feels special being able to play what is a bucket list venue for them. Opening with Corner’s Dilemma, they immediately show off their brand of loud aggressive pop-punk which had the crowd singing and finger pointing along to, and it didn’t take long for the nights first crowd surfers to make their way over the barrier. The set was good mix of songs throughout the bands discography including a newly released track. Ending with singalong anthem Two Beers which had the crowd drowning the band out you could almost believe that they were headlining this room themselves.
Rating: 8/10
Switching up album order THE WONDER YEARS open the set with album closer and title track No Closer To Heaven for a more slow and acoustic start to the set before Brothers & Cardinals had the crowd chanting “we’re no saviours”. Being able to play an album in full gives the chance for more deep cuts which don’t typically find their way on the setlist to shine, and one thing this does is highlight the strength of the album as there is not a slow point in the set and every song has the crowd shouting the lyrics back. At certain points guitarist Matt Brasch takes to a second drum kit to help the songs accurately reflect how they were recorded on the album, when this is first done during Cigarettes and Saints you can immediately hear how both drum tracks work together to help the song sound larger than life in the room.
At one point in the set vocalist Dan Campbell talks about the struggles he had trying to write the album, especially as a follow up to The Greatest Generation and how he found comfort reading about Ernest Hemingway and which ultimately led to A Song For Ernest Hemingway being written which now with the context behind it feels more impactful. Another highlight was Stained Glass Ceilings which before this tour had not been played since 2018, the politically charged song feels just as relevant today as it did 10 years ago and the band chose to include the feature by LETLIVE.’s Jason Aaron Butler with a hologram of him on the stage. The benefit of slightly switching up the albums order meant they could close the first part of their set with Palm Reader and as the song closed with the two drum tracks filling the room it gives an impactful way to end the album
After a brief interval the band returns with a quick chorus of “happy birthday” to celebrate Dan’s 40th birthday, cake included, the immediately jump into the second part of their set. Starting with Passing Through A Screen Door the highlight songs from nearly every album they have released, before wrapping up with crowd favourite Came Out Swinging. The night ends with singalong anthems and more than enough crowd surfers to keep the security up the front busy. While this tour may be the last for a while as the band plans on going on a break after this tour cycle, tonight has given every fan in the room a night to remember.
While this tour is intended to be a celebration of No Closer To Heaven it does more, as it feels like a true celebration of a band 20 years into an impressive career and the community of fans that came along for the ride.
Rating: 10/10
Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in London from C Wilkinson Media here:
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