Camden Roundhouse, London. Friday 17th Feb.
First off, I must admit that seeing New Found Glory at the Camden Roundhouse, London on Friday was not my initial intention.Along with, I suspect, many attending the Kerrang Tour last week, I bought my ticket with the desire to see pop/punk legends Sum41 strut their stuff, some six years after they became one of my teenaged go-to bands.
I can’t have been alone then, in feeling that the news of Sum41 withdrawal from their co-headline tour was a massive disappointment. Frontman Derek Whibley continues to suffer from back problems, and so there was no option but to pull out. The band, now in their third decade of performing, were the sole reason I had bought my ticket back in October.
However as one friend pointed out to me, live music is better than no live music. Certainly a true statement, so with the disappointment pushed to the back of my mind, to Camden we went.
The two supporting bands While She Sleeps and Letlive both performed confident, if raw, sets before Sum41’s billed replacement Welsh post-hardcore act The Blackout came out to the mock-apologetic intro of Elton John's Sorry seems to be the hardest word. Frequent light-hearted references to the absent headline act did little to stir the older pop/punk fans into much of a response, but their second song, an excellent cover of Fatlip (Sum41 - All Killer No Filler, 2001) was certainly enough to lift the mood and quell my own resentments towards the band.
The rest of their set, surprisingly short for a co-headline act, was performed with energy and although not to my taste, they have certainly improved as a live act since I saw them supporting LostProphets five years ago.
New Found Glory’s set was one of experienced, consummate professionals. Despite knowing very little of their material, they were extremely likeable and easy to get behind as they played a mix of their old and recent pop/punk favourites. A cover of the Ramones’ Blitzkreig Bop was a personal highlight, and a direct tribute to Marky Ramone following his guesting appearance with the band at The Bamboozle 2011 festival. The cover of Kiss Me, originally by Six Pence None the Richer was an odd choice but worked really well as a punk rendition, whilst the Green Day classic, Basket Case, capped off an extremely fun evening.
It’s been fifteen years since NFG first started performing live together, and whilst the band themselves have long since grown-up from the teenage pop/punkers of Florida, they are still well accustomed to writing and performing for not only the new pop/punk generation, but the young teenage party animal inside everyone at the Camden Roundhouse. Cheesy ending? You bet.