Tuesday and Wednesday marked my first endeavours on British soil in 2017, and I couldn't have picked a better band than With Confidence and better cities than Leeds and Manchester to do it. I'm currently in London, waiting for my coach home, and I'd trade places with anyone in Glasgow for another night with my new favourite Australian band.

Both nights, the evening is opened by the only English band on the line-up, Milestones. I had discovered them at Mildtfest, last summer, and had been impressed by their catchy songs and all the emo that was lying around in there. I can now officially say I am in there for the long haul. Both days, their set has been solid and an easy explanation as to why they are on every single tour you can think of until the summer (they are embarking on Mayday Parade's 10 year anniversary tour for A Lesson in Romantics at the end of this, and then, they'll be traipsing around Europe alongside Simple Plan). They have a fair amount of fans in the crowd (especially in Leeds, overall one of the best crowds I've shared a gig with) and singalongs are easily heard. If I were you, I wouldn't sleep on Milestones. At all. That band is going to blow up.

Coming straight from Ontario, Canada is Safe To Say. They are different from everyone else on the line up - they're not a pop punk band (as they will explain in Manchester, they made friends with With Confidence during Warped Tour, and the rest is history), but still, there's a whole lot of talent lying around in there. How do I start to explain Safe To Say? They're a little bit emo, a little bit alt rock, a little bit "shove them on every line up in Brighton and they'll blow the roof off the venue" - in the best possible way, a little bit Canadian enough to thank the crowd fifty times in the space of fifteen minutes, but most of all, a little bit very good. They're also a band I'm definitely going to keep listening to in the future. They were different, but I liked it. A lot.

There's not really a main support on the tour, but if you had to pick one, it would be California pop punks Broadside, mostly because, in sound, they're closer to the headliners than the other two, and also because they've received the strongest reaction out of the three.
Both nights, most people already knew who they were and, in Manchester, someone was already donning Broadside merch before the show. Their sunny pop punk tunes are infectious and catchier than the catchiest song you can think of right now, and my favourite thing about their music is that they are a pop punk band with true, genuine pop elements - I mean, it's called POP punk for a reason. If you're looking for a pop punk band whose frontman has a true pop voice (and you probably should), then, Broadside are for you. I don't think I was expecting the storm they've been both nights and I am coming back home a fan, wishing they were on the mainland Europe leg of the tour. If you're not convinced yet, I should probably tell you there's one hell of a key change in closer Coffee Talk, and you really, really cannot say no to a band that reminds you key changes are the single most satisfying thing in the world.

As Australian pop punk outfit With Confidence walk on stage both nights, I realise one thing -  it's crazy how a band can have the biggest impact on your life in the smallest amount of time. I only started listening to them at Christmas, because I was sad and you can't not have a smile on your face at some point if you watch the music video for Voldemort ten times in a row, and two months later, here I was, spending fourteen hours on a bus to see them play in a different country. Already.

About ten seconds into opener Voldemort, I knew I'd literally go anywhere in the world for this lot, and I wish it was an exaggeration.

These two shows have been everything I wanted them to be and so, so much more. I'd heard lots of people saying With Confidence were excellent live, and I can only confirm this - they were, indeed, brilliant. They have that quality I adore that made the live renditions of their songs sound like the studio recording, just a little more emotional at times (which is never a problem for yours truly the queen of emo) - Keys, mostly sang by guitarist Inigo Del Carmen, absolutely floored me both nights. I don't want to make generalisations, but it's often tough finding pop punk bands that sound as good live as they do on record, and I think we have a winner here. Sound-wise, With Con offered both Leeds and Manchester a perfect performance.
(I should also point out that frontman Jayden Seeley got sick at the beginning of the tour, and if it wasn't for them reminding us on stage, I wouldn't even have noticed. That's how good they sounded)

One thing I wasn't expecting, though, was how rowdy the crowd would be in Leeds (and, to an extent, in Manchester too). As the crowds are getting younger and emigrate to pop punk from pop lands, you don't expect crowdsurfers going at it the whole time, and you don't expect finding yourself in a circle pit during London Lights, but here you are. Quite simply put, the crowd in Leeds was just as perfect as the band. In Manchester, though, the gig was upgraded to the bigger part of Sound Control two hours before the show, and the much bigger room and barrier didn't help crowdsurfers - but still didn't stop them doing their thing. If I wasn't expecting rowdy crowds, I sure as hell wasn't expecting some dude trying to punch a guy first song in and in front of the band. People.





If you're going to a show in Leeds, one thing to expect is some chanting, and if the crowd hasn't shouted "Yorkshire, Yorkshire" at least once, you should probably ask for a refund. The best thing about, roughly, a hundred people chanting "u wot u wot Leeds" was the look of sheer confusion on Jayden Seeley's face as he admitted that "the only word (I) understood was Leeds". Australian people being confronted to typically English slang and also, to a whole crowd of people singing Wonderwall at random because, well, you're in Manchester is nothing short of amazing. Blame it on the years I spent, myself, learning English slang and being confused, blame it on the fact that this doesn't really exist in the French language, blame it on me studying English and linguistics and maybe blame it on the boogie, but man, I probably enjoyed it more than I should have.

The truth is, I have loved every second of both sets. The fact that my legs barely function as we speak and that I walked about forty minutes under the rain, then snow last night, and the punching idiot haven't ruined anything for me, and, I don't want to make this emotional or soppy, but nothing can take those two hours away from me. I have so many hightlights - the perfect singalongs are one. I'm not just a sucker for a good key change, I am one for a good singalong, too. The live rendition of Long Night, this time not featuring a piano but a guitar instead, was just gorgeous and hit me (and many more people) right in the feels. These shows felt like rediscovering songs I have been listening to on repeat for the past two months - I'd never realise I would cry at Dinner Bell, Gravity and Waterfall were as powerful as ever, having a boogie to oldies Tonight and Godzilla was blissful and... Can you believe a song makes you ten times happier live than it does on record? That's also what happened. 

Overall, there's no fault anywhere on these shows. I have finished writing this review and I am still sat in the food court of Victoria Coach Station, still wishing I was in Glasgow, Newcastle or Nottingham for another night of this. They're playing Paris in two weeks, and it feels like decades away.