New Found Glory
New Found Glory are a band I have been waiting to see since I was about 15 years old and when I heard they were headlining Manchester Academy with Hardcore Punksters Four Year Strong and Pop Punk kids, Set Your Goals I was straight down to the box office!
After waiting six years to see the band that shaped my college days, I was hoping the boys from South Florida would have something super special in store for me… and I wasn’t disappointed.
Crime In Stereo were to openers, and as far as support acts go, they weren’t half bad, I tend to see a lot of them as something you just have to endure until you get your money’s worth from the main band, but clearly there were a lot of CIS fans out in force as they started diving around the half-empty room as soon as the guys came out.
I have to concede though, the topless drummers delicious body did keep my attention for their short set, although the Emo kid doing the singing did have a rather beautiful face… and voice of course! Over all they were a tight band who could have been worse.
Next up were Massachusetts finest, Four Year Strong; the favourite band of a friend of mine who passed away in August. As the band he idolised so much took over the room with Maniac; the lyrics; “I've always heard that the good die young†never held more meaning. Alex should have been here tearing up the dance floor.
There are clearly a lot of fans here for these guys, and the boys are more than happy to play up to them as synth and backing vocalist, Josh Lyford leaps into the crowd singing right in the teenybobber’s faces and they struggle to kiss his sweat-soaked skin. Not only that, but this boy plays air guitar with his synth stand, in fact, does just about anything he can pull off on stage, much to the delight of the audience. I’ll be sure to check them out again!
Once they depart we have for a quick fag and to recharge out glasses before it’s the turn of Set Your Goals, who I’ve been hearing a lot of lately but never actually heard before now. Although they aren’t really ‘my cup of tea’ they were far more reminiscent to headliners New Found Glory than the previous two bands.
Filling the entire stage and having two great singers up their sleeve, the room started bouncing around from the very first song to the last… and with seamless links between songs and no silence… that was a pretty long time.
With them out of the way there was only one band left… the mighty New Found Glory with the delicious Jordan Pundik ready to make me drool for the next hour and half.
As the lights go down the stage is anchored by two huge NFG flags and other banners displaying their name, I find myself getting a little too excited as I barge through the sea of 14 year old kids and plonk myself right at the front, just in case Jordan is looking for a wife and happens to spot my good self.
The set was made up of a mixture of songs from their back catalogue, which sounded delightful live, and you really appreciate the real intensity of Jordan’s voice as well as the unbelievable ability of the rest of the guys to whack a great sound out of their instruments whilst flailing about the stage like madmen.
The set began with Understatement from 2002’s Sticks And Stones and ended with their biggest track to date, from the same album, My Friends Over You. In between these though were offerings from all their albums, as well as their famous cover of Sixpence None The Richer’s Kiss Me, an heartbreakingly good version of The Goo Goo Dolls’ Iris and an ear-clenching recital of the Never Ending Story theme.
There was a touching moment when a fan crowd surfed to the front but passed out as he hurtled over the barrier and Jordan stopped the show until we were sure he was alright, announcing; “We don’t carry on playing when one of our fans is passed out on the floor.†which resulted in rapturous applause from the crowd.
The sound quality is great and the six-year wait proves to be 100% worth it, although I don’t actually get a proposal from any of them, including Ian Grushka who got his top off halfway through the set, revealing his rather un-toned figure. Nice.
And on that note, it was time to head back into the cold winter air (with clothes on and minus a diamond on my finger) with a memory that will stay with me forever. Lets just hope I don’t have to wait another million years for round two.
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison
Photos by Claire Louise Parkinson