Live review : The Wonder Years (Backstage by the Mill, Paris)
02:38
It's a story everyone knows. In the winter of 2013, The Wonder Years come to play Paris and there are forty two people including fourteen paying customers in the venue. This story is stuck to our feet like the page of a newspaper sticks to a dog when it rains. It's been three years of rain, now, and it's about time we change history.
The evening is opened by the Americans of Tiny Moving Parts. They are a band whose name I have seen lying around for ages, but haven't listened to - yet. Their set is enticing from the get go, partly thanks to an incredible crowd who will echo every word, and mostly thanks to a fabulous band. They have the catchiness I'm always looking for in music, the ability to unite people and make them singalong as one. They have the obvious enthusiasm and kindness, as they ask the audience to come meet them at the end of the show because "they love making friends". They have a little something special in the way they play music, the emo sound and the catchy songs meet some sort of almost prog-rock technicality, with intricate riffs and complicated (yet accessible) melodies. Their set was the success I wasn't expecting and it won me over in ways I wouldn't have imagined. That was wonderful.
They're not reinventing the wheel of pop-punk, Trash Boat. If you listen to them closely, you can hear various influences dotted here and there, and I'm pretty sure they'd be different for every listener. (Mine were The Story So Far, blink-182 and a hint of Far-Q era Lower Than Atlantis) And I've come to realise maybe that's why it works. Because in the end, Trash Boat have a certain magic that works. It's like all these influences, associated with truckloads of enthusiasm, excellent vocals and the desire to beat the curse they seem to be under everytime they set foot in the city of love and baguettes make up a puzzle that make it all work and sets them apart. The truth is, their set should have been met with a better reaction from the crowd, but, consider this - it took me two years to get it, to go from utter confusion to headbangs and smiles. Maybe Paris just wasn't ready for catchy pop punk tunes, English accents and talks of Disneyland yet. And you can't fault them for that, because they gave it everything. At least, they got me on board, which I'm not sure is that much of a blessing, but here we are. I'm now moving on to calling them Trashy B on a regular basis and knowing I'll see them soon, wherever that is.
It wasn't hard for me to fall for The Wonder Years. It took one song (Passing Through a Screen Door, a heartwrenching track about the expectations you have when you're growing up and all the questions that arise when you don't reach said expectations) and one support set, a year ago, in Alexandra Palace. I heard Passing Through a Screen Door, I heard a crowd sing along and I heard frontman Dan 'Soupy' Campbell saying he never played with his glasses but today he had to because he wanted to know what ten thousand people looked like, and I knew I was in for the long haul. It doesn't take a lot, sometimes.
The Wonder Years don't have in front of them the very own ten thousand people I hope they get someday, but the turnout in the Backstage by the Mill is a victory compared to the infamous Maroquinerie Disaster - forty two people (counted by Soupy himself, according to the legend), only including fourteen paying customers. There's now over a hundred of us in the room, ready for a singalong to some of the best pop punk songs ever released.
There are moments in a lifetime when you're supposed to say things the way they are.
The grass is green. The sky is blue. Humankind doesn't deserve dogs.
The Wonder Years are one of the best pop punk bands there ever was and there ever will be.
Not much compares to the quality of their studio work, but that's a story best kept for another day - even though it greatly contributes to The Wonder Years leading the pack of the most recent wave of pop punk.
But the truth is, not much compares to the quality of their live performance either. Their songs, as they are, already carry a heavy emotional weight, and I bet if you asked any fan, they'd find lyrics and songs they relate to, here and there. Live, all this emotion and all this sincerity explodes in your face and hits you hard, real hard. I thought I was going to bawl my eyes out to Passing Through a Screen Door and leave my lachrymal glands alone for the rest of the gig. Boy, how wrong was I. I ended up in tears during a big chunk of the gig (notably during Local Man Ruins Everything and Dismantling Summer, though I think the moment during which I felt my heart physically hurt me was Cigarettes & Saints. I'm too emotionally fragile for that kind of raw, pure pain), and the most ridiculous bit is, I didn't cry to Passing Through a Screen Door. I jumped around in my non moshpit approved shoes, angrily finger pointed and shouted the lyrics as if I was saying goodbye to all those fears and expectations I'm not reaching anyway, so why holding on to them.
These songs don't become more emotional just because they're being played live. It's not down to the mere fact that you're getting to hear them played by the musicians that make them as opposed to your stereo (or any electronical device the cool kids use to play music in 2017). They get more emotional because the band who plays them for you gives their all. Campbell is sick and the setlist has to be cut short because of it, but if you didn't know, you wouldn't have guessed. His voice is just as impressive live with an illness as it is on record, and just a glance at him tells you he lives every word and every note. What had moved me in February was their sincerity. They did it again. They gave the crowd those songs with everything they had and everything they were, and it won me over like it was the first day.
The excellent set is closed by the equally excellent Came Out Swinging, one of the band's earliest hits, and as the lights are turned back on, I have to face the facts.
Like I said, there are moments in a lifetime when you have to say things he way they are and not sugarcoat it.
The Wonder Years, despite having a sick frontman, gave their all and gave one of the best live performances I have ever seen.
It wasn't hard for me to fall for The Wonder Years. It took one song (Passing Through a Screen Door, a heartwrenching track about the expectations you have when you're growing up and all the questions that arise when you don't reach said expectations) and one support set, a year ago, in Alexandra Palace. I heard Passing Through a Screen Door, I heard a crowd sing along and I heard frontman Dan 'Soupy' Campbell saying he never played with his glasses but today he had to because he wanted to know what ten thousand people looked like, and I knew I was in for the long haul. It doesn't take a lot, sometimes.
The Wonder Years don't have in front of them the very own ten thousand people I hope they get someday, but the turnout in the Backstage by the Mill is a victory compared to the infamous Maroquinerie Disaster - forty two people (counted by Soupy himself, according to the legend), only including fourteen paying customers. There's now over a hundred of us in the room, ready for a singalong to some of the best pop punk songs ever released.
There are moments in a lifetime when you're supposed to say things the way they are.
The grass is green. The sky is blue. Humankind doesn't deserve dogs.
The Wonder Years are one of the best pop punk bands there ever was and there ever will be.
Not much compares to the quality of their studio work, but that's a story best kept for another day - even though it greatly contributes to The Wonder Years leading the pack of the most recent wave of pop punk.
But the truth is, not much compares to the quality of their live performance either. Their songs, as they are, already carry a heavy emotional weight, and I bet if you asked any fan, they'd find lyrics and songs they relate to, here and there. Live, all this emotion and all this sincerity explodes in your face and hits you hard, real hard. I thought I was going to bawl my eyes out to Passing Through a Screen Door and leave my lachrymal glands alone for the rest of the gig. Boy, how wrong was I. I ended up in tears during a big chunk of the gig (notably during Local Man Ruins Everything and Dismantling Summer, though I think the moment during which I felt my heart physically hurt me was Cigarettes & Saints. I'm too emotionally fragile for that kind of raw, pure pain), and the most ridiculous bit is, I didn't cry to Passing Through a Screen Door. I jumped around in my non moshpit approved shoes, angrily finger pointed and shouted the lyrics as if I was saying goodbye to all those fears and expectations I'm not reaching anyway, so why holding on to them.
These songs don't become more emotional just because they're being played live. It's not down to the mere fact that you're getting to hear them played by the musicians that make them as opposed to your stereo (or any electronical device the cool kids use to play music in 2017). They get more emotional because the band who plays them for you gives their all. Campbell is sick and the setlist has to be cut short because of it, but if you didn't know, you wouldn't have guessed. His voice is just as impressive live with an illness as it is on record, and just a glance at him tells you he lives every word and every note. What had moved me in February was their sincerity. They did it again. They gave the crowd those songs with everything they had and everything they were, and it won me over like it was the first day.
The excellent set is closed by the equally excellent Came Out Swinging, one of the band's earliest hits, and as the lights are turned back on, I have to face the facts.
Like I said, there are moments in a lifetime when you have to say things he way they are and not sugarcoat it.
The Wonder Years, despite having a sick frontman, gave their all and gave one of the best live performances I have ever seen.
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