LIVE(STREAM) REVIEW: Mayday Parade @ Anywhere But Here Session
Closing off the Rawring ’20s with a triumphant emo cry, MAYDAY PARADE once again revisited their 2009 success Anywhere But Here, an album that would become the hallmark for late 2000s emo sound and helped secured their rightful place in the 00s emo hall of fame.
MAYDAY PARADE actually performed a handful of shows last year to honour their sophomore album’s 10-year anniversary. But, in a perfect way to close a decade’s worth of emo anthems, the Florida group hit the rewind button one more time and succame to the nostalgia.
Kicking off with Kids In Love that launches you back into 2009; you’ve got swoopy bangs, you’re customising your MySpace, a girl sent you a Blingee gift, and your mum just got you knee-high converse – life is good. It’s almost cinematic and beautiful to watch the band power through each song with the same passion, excitement, and love they had for these songs back in 2009.
But now they’re bringing a decade’s worth of experience and practice under their belt, giving these beloved songs a more well-refined, better tuned, and better-executed finish. There’s always been this stereotype that after a while bands begin to fizzle out and lose the authenticity they had back in their prime, MAYDAY PARADE found their prime and haven’t left it. For the fans, seeing them revisit Bruised and Scarred or Center of Attention with the same upbeat charm they had as plucky underdogs is an inspiring reminder that they’ve still go it, they never lost it.
Derek Sanders has not aged a day as he bounces around on stage, despite the fact that there’s nobody else but them and their crew in the room, he’s bouncing around as if there were 100,000 people screaming around him. The bar for livestream concerts was set high early on, it’s been interesting to see how and if bands can live up to it. MAYDAY PARADE isn’t a band to half-arse their shows, they’ll perform every show like it’s their last. You have to admire the effort for this show, they’d booked a venue, hired our sound and lighting, had good audio and visual set up from multiple angles, and had fun little cutaways between sets. Having a live feed too was useful, it gives real-time reactions from fans across the world who were screaming, crying, and keyboard smashing in excitement to their favourite tracks. Even just playing on a stage creates the feeling that you’re actually there, even if you’re looking through a screen, the effort to make fans feel like they’re right there in the crowd is appreciated.
A decade in the bag, with another decade of emo to come and MAYDAY PARADE, have reminded us once again why we loved the 2000s. With a show-stopping, visually breathtaking, exhilarating, and momentous performance that was catered to their fans, this went off as an absolute hit and if anything, MAYDAY PARADE needs to do more live-streamed shows.
Rating: 9/10
Check out a selection of photographs from the Anywhere But Here Session here:
