2017 has been a good year for a lot of things, so far. Music is one, definitely. Nostalgia is also high up on the list.

Tuesday night at the Bataclan held the fifteenth anniversary tour for Simple Plan's breakout album No Pads, No Helmets... Just Balls.

Wednesday night at the Bataclan saw Good Charlotte returning to the French capital after a hiatus and a six year long absence.

Supporting both bands were young acts that I hope, in fifteen to twenty years, are going to make us as nostalgic as we all were these two days. Imagine us all standing in the same room again, headlined by the likes of these once young bands, fondly remembering that one time we tried to open a moshpit and someone pushed me because they weren't having any of it, so I fell over and cut my hand, or that one time we showed off our terrible, yet glorious dance moves.

Milestones are going up the ladder at break neck speed. With just one EP out (Equal Measures), they have found themselves supporting With Confidence on their UK/Europe tour back in March, but also Mayday Parade across the USA - and now, they're on the road with Simple Plan. Their catchy pop-punk sound is efficient and their lyrics are great for a singalong (which we do when we get back up from the Moshpit Incident). Their music should be working wonders around the continent this summer, and it's easy to see why they're growing as fast as they are. 

(Prior to that, the band performed quite the extensive acoustic set for La Maison Acoustique and sounded lovely. They also are the only Mancunians who don't know the words to Wonderwall. Who knew such a thing was possible)

Mallory Knox aren't exactly new. In the UK, they have no problem selling out venues of the thousand capacity variety, they are set to headline 2000 Trees Festival in a couple of weeks, and their three albums (2013's Signals, 2014's Asymmetry and this year's Wired) have done pretty well and provided the other side of the Channel with a bunch of excellent, polished, straight up alt-rock tunes. On the old continent, though, it's a different story. They have only ever come over as a support act (notably for Finch, One OK Rock or Sleeping With Sirens), or for festivals, and are only just starting to make a name for themselves. In the Bataclan, you can tell that some people know who they are, and that the vast majority of the crowd is enjoying what they're hearing. I can't blame them. What we've all heard that night is of the outstanding kind, for Mallory Knox never fail at delivering brilliant peformances, urgent and precise all at once, with flawless sound and vocals each and every time.

Issues, coming straight from Atlanta, Georgia, aren't exactly newbies either. The band, who was born from the ashes of Woe, Is Me in 2012, have already released two albums (a self-titled in 2014 and Headspace last year). They don't make the trek to Europe often enough to anyone's taste, and their Bataclan appearance in support of Good Charlotte is actually their first time in France. There's nothing wrong you can say about their performance. Every single song is the catchiest little thing ever, and if we tried hard enough, Issues could probably end up in the charts. Frontman Tyler Carter is one of these people in our scene who has a stunning RnB voice and could be a pop star, but has somehow decided to stick to alternative music. Every track is delivered with an impressive perfection and precision, but it doesn't seem to work on the Bataclan crowd - I suppose the sound is just a little too different from Good Charlotte's, and it's not what the audience expect or want tonight. Their music sadly falls on deaf ears, and it's a shame considering how good their performance is. Oh, well. Their loss. I enjoyed my terrible singalong to Never Lose Your Flames and Mad at Myself. I really can't sing.

State Champs might be the youngest band on tonight's bill, but there is no doubt they will have made an impression on the French crowd. From the get go, their fans (and they are aplenty in the room) start bouncing up and down, and open up a moshpit in joyous harmony. (Harmony, though, can't be used to describe the attempts at crowdsurfing - it seems Good Charlotte's crowd aren't happy with people crawling on top of their heads). The words to their sunny pop punk tunes (notably Remedy, Elevated or All You Are Is History) are easily echoed around the room, and if you didn't know, you could almost think they were the headliners. On stage, the band is energetic and jumps about the place, spins around - who's more energetic, the band or the crowd, it's hard to tell. Their music is the closest to Good Charlotte's in sound, and it wouldn't be surprising if they had earned themselves a fair amount of new fans with that tour.

Sleeping With Sirens might have four albums out, and might be one of the biggest names in the scene, and yet, they have never been to France before. I suppose it's now easy to picture the crowd's high level of expectation and excitement when the Americans come on stage - most people have waited for this moment for years. I have an issue with Sleeping With Sirens - I just don't like the vocals. During their forty-something minute set, they play banger after banger, I know more lyrics than I care to admit, and I can objectively say that their songs are very good - I just can't shake off the fact that I don't like the vocals. Each to their own, right? Personal taste aside, the band's performance is solid, and frontman Kellin Quinn's beatboxing of the Mario Bros theme to keep the audience occupied while a technical issue was being resolved was a surprising addition to the set. (I enjoyed it more than I ever thought I would ever enjoy a beatbox version of the Mario Bros theme) I can't deny they are a good band. I suppose I'll just keep on liking the couple of songs I like (If You Can't Hang and Do It Now, Remember It Later), and stay fairly neutral about them.

Simple Plan and Good Charlotte are bands that have made their way into my life at the same time, give or take a couple of months.
I was fifteen when I first heard the Canadians' Welcome to My Life in a car ad on television, and I was sixteen or seventeen when my friend Magali lent me her MP3 player for me to get new tunes. I found Good Charlotte's My Bloody Valentine in there and became hooked. The main point is - I was a teenager, and both bands shaped my formative years, exposing the emo in me to the world. (I don't think the world really needed it, but here we are)

Both tours have an air of nostalgia about them. Simple Plan are celebrating the fifteen year anniversary of their debut album, No Pads, No Helmets... Just Balls, and Good Charlotte are making a comeback after a four year hiatus. During the night, both bands will talk about taking it back to 2002, or 2007, telling us that we have all grown up together - ain't that the truth. Watching such iconic bands with my friends for the first time is special. We share stories. One is definitely going to cry to Perfect because it pulls on their heartstrings. One wants us to have a dance to My Alien for her because it's her favourite song. One has hoped to hear Grow Up live for the past ten, fifteen years. When it comes to Good Charlotte, one is excited to hear The Young and the Hopeless, more than any other song on the setlist. One is going to jam to Girls & Boys like there's no tomorrow. One remembers that I Just Wanna Live is the first song of theirs she's ever heard. All of us have stories related to those bands. They made us who we are, they most likely were our gateway into pop-punk, into alternative music in general, they propelled us into the scene we are a part of.


More than being important parts of who we are, Good Charlotte and Simple Plan are truly great live bands. It's been fifteen years, and Simple Plan still jump about on stage with an unmatched energy. The bands I listen to and watch live that display that much constant energy are very few. When you watch them, you watch a band who very, very obviously wanted to still be on a stage fifteen years after their first record, who probably still want to be on a stage fifteen years from now, if anyone will still have them. They still have the impertinent charm, the banter that made them the household name they are, they are still very true to what made them. They still have a knack at interacting with the crowd, a knack few other bands have - obviously, speaking French helps them greatly in France, and yet it's about more than the language. Getting people with posters on stage for a group picture is a nice, friendly touch, having drummer Chuck Comeau sing the end of a song, then stagedive while frontman Pierre Bouvier plays the drums is another brilliant moment, not hiding why bass player David Desrosiers is not on the tour is honest and very welcome. I have been listening to Simple Plan for twelve years, now, ever since I was a fifteen year old with no direction, no sense of style and no words to express my teenage angst. Catch me at whatever tour the Canadians will surely do in twelve years' time (and, hopefully before that). I'll still be here singing my little heart out.

Good Charlotte tell us they have been a band since 1996. When the date hangs in the air, we all look at each other, wondering what we were all doing back then, back in the day, how old we were. I was a six year old child whose musical world revolved around French boy bands and the Spice Girls, and it's mindblowing to think that in the meantime, somewhere in America, a band who would change my life was jamming their first ever tunes and trying to find their feet. Twenty one years later (gasp!), Good Charlotte are on a stage in Paris, and it seems that after the break, they are here to stay. No one mentions the hiatus, like it's a dirty word, but mostly like it never happened, like Good Charlotte never went anywhere. When you watch them on a stage, nothing has changed. Sure, they don't look the way they used to, they don't look like the pictures I used to see in magazines before I had any way of listening to them. Gone are the eyeliner and the raven black spikes bigger than my hands, but Good Charlotte, at heart, are still the same band. They're still the kids who had nothing, and somehow made it, a real American Dream story this scene doesn't seem to have anymore. It still shows, in a way. There is so much emotion in the way they perform. They are not a band who jumps around and spins until they are dizzy, they don't really tell jokes. They are all about the emotion, even during now alternative club night classic numbers such as The Anthem or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Somehow, it feels like they still know what it feels like to be the outcast, to be the kid who gets picked last in gym class, to be the kid no one looks twice at. It something that never goes away, something you learn from and, in Good Charlotte's case, something that you turn into something beautiful. Thir live performance is nothing short of utterly beautiful, so heartfelt and real it hurts a little bit. Hold On will always pull on my heartstrings, will always throw me back to times when music was the sole thing I had. I still know what it feels like to be the kid who has nothing, to be the kid who is angsty enough to listen to My Bloody Valentine every Valentine's Day because she feels like no one will ever love her (I didn't know it was a song about murdering someone, sue me, I was sixteen and didn't speak English), to be the kid who had nothing but a couple of records and a whole lot of hope. I'm not anymore. I'm a grown woman who smiles when My Bloody Valentine comes on, who dances to The Anthem with a drink in hand and her best friends in tow, who jellyfishes in a moshpit to Dance Floor Anthem, I'm a grown woman with a lot of records, a lot of feelings, a lot of hope and a lot going on.





Those two nights watching the bands who made me the person I am today, and the bands who give me adventures with my friends were very special times for me. I suppose, every once in a while, the angsty teen I once was has to come out again to meet up with the emotional adult I have become, so they can have a dance together. 

After my brief stint in the UK to see With Confidence, the plan was to patiently wait two weeks until my local date, Paris, on the 16th of March. 

That’s adorable of me to have thought I would make it two weeks when there was a full European tour available for me to check out, and here I went on an impromptu trip to Berlin and Leipzig, yes in actual Germany, to see this lot again. It was a good occasion for me to check out the state of the scene in a different country (which is something I rarely do, I usually stick to the UK and France because a) it feels safe and b) I speak the language), and see how the tour dynamic was without the Americans of Broadside, who were only scheduled to play on the UK leg of the tour and went back home as the others headed towards the old continent, leaving me with the memory of one of the most phenomenal key changes I've ever heard.

Neither Berlin nor Paris had a local band (Paris with no local band, shocking, am I right) but Leipzig did, in the form of pop punks Storyteller. I haven’t understood a single word the lead singer said as my German is abysmal (but according to a German citizen, “Ich liebe Kartoffelsalat” (“I love potato salad”) is all you need), apart from “With Confidence” and “fanboy” chucked in the same sentence, so I take it they were, as a unit, fanboying a little bit over the idea of playing alongside With Confidence. Music wise, they were alright, they sounded a lot like As It Is, if that gives you an idea - very bouncy, catchy and sunny.

I sadly missed a big chunk of Milestones in Berlin, as I got lost walking around in circles outside the S-Bahn station, but I was there bright and early for their Leipzig and Paris sets. I repeat what I have previously said : do not sleep on them. They’re not just lovely and catchy as hell, they’re also insanely talented. I found myself noticing how strong and impressive frontman Matt Clarke’s vocals are, and both performances were on the brilliant side of things. In Paris, they even had a little group of fans singing along to A Shot in the Dark or Call Me Disaster, and I’m pretty sure they will be a success when they hit our shores again in June, alongside Simple Plan. I cannot wait.

Safe To Say have been fully growing on me since the UK shows - it might be that I have actually taken the time to sit down and listen to their most recent album, Down in the Dark, and it might also be because the sound quality in all three European venues (Musik & Frieden in Berlin, Felsenkeller in Leipzig and Espace B in Paris) was so, so much better than in the UK, which made their performance bigger, and their music take a whole other dimension - it's catchy yet atmospheric, and I'm always on board with that kind of vibe. I still wish frontman Brad Garcia would stop apologising for not being a pop punk band - I promise, you’re still incredible, no one cares what genre your music is. The wait until they find their way back to Europe will be long. Very long. (In the meantime, if Only Rain could get the hell out of my brain, that would be lovely, please and thank you)

And then it was time for With Confidence.

The mainland crowds were different, and the venues weren’t exactly sold out everywhere. Berlin was reasonably full, but I could only count up to, say, fifty people in Leipzig. In Paris, according to drummer Josh Brozzesi, the band had only sold about thirty tickets until a couple of days before the show, and we ended up being, roughly, a hundred. A hundred VERY loud people, though, who sang along from start to finish and made it sound like there was five hundred of us in there. Apart from a tiny, shy one in Berlin, you couldn’t find the moshpits the UK had seen, let alone the crowdsurfers, but everyone was into it, and at the end of the day, what matters is that everyone has fun, not how you do it. It's okay to just have a little boogie or an angry finger point, too. On stage, all I see is a band who thrives in tiny venues, and, to be fair, whatever the size of the venue, whatever the amount of people in it, With Confidence are a band who gives their all. Some bands would get pissed off and play a half-arsed show because there’s only ten people in front of them. Not With Confidence. They always give a hundred percent, it seems.

Remember how, in the recap of the Leeds and Manchester shows, I'd said that if it wasn't for them reminding the crowd, I wouldn't have noticed that frontman Jayden Seeley was sick? Now he wasn't anymore, and, weirdly enough, I noticed. In the UK, I thought he sounded incredible, so what's above that?

Higher absolutely floored me all three nights - it seems I make a point of crying at songs that just aren’t sad. At all. The ending, more intimate, with just Seeley and his bass, asking the crowd to join in, absolutely destroyed me. Granted, nostalgia kicked in and I spent a good chunk of the Paris show wiping tears from the corners of my eyes, but, you know. There’s always space to celebrate such a lovely moment.

Paris was probably my favourite show of the whole tour, if I’m honest. Up until the beginning of Milestones, I was scared - was ending my stint on the Better Weather tour at home the best choice? Well yes, it was, thank you for asking. First, I got to make friends and enjoy the evening with some of my best friends, which is always a plus. I also had the absolute pleasure of sharing the evening with a beautiful, brilliant crowd, who showed this band a whole lot of love - I think they were impressed, and guitarist Luke Rockets wouldn’t stop thanking the crowd and saying how crazy it all was.

I wish I had more words than that, but I’m still coming to terms with the fact that my next With Con show is the Set It Off tour, and then Slam Dunk, in two months. One day I’ll learn. One day I’ll know that the comedown after several shows off the same tour is always a bit painful for someone prone to nostalgia like myself. The thing is, it was all worth it. Five shows, three different countries, 4384 kilometres, four awesome bands, one conversation about camembert. It doesn’t really get any better than this.

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.