ALL TIME LOW

W/ TONIGHT ALIVE

BRIXTON ACADEMY, LONDON 15.03.14

Sometimes jokes wear off. Sometimes the class clown grows up and gets a 9-5 office job. Luckily, for All Time Low, their jokes are part of their 9-5 and so is their back catalogue that stretches as far back as 2005. Though once upon a time they supported their ancestors in punk rock, Green Day, at the grand Emirates Stadium, they’re back on safe turf at a fraction of the capacity. But that doesn’t mean it results in a fraction of a performance.

Busting through last year’s third full length release The Other Side, Sydney’s five-piece Tonight Alive are back at Brixton Academy after the Kerrang! Tour ’13. They may have moved up a place on the bill but they’ve also ascended into some serious territory as real contenders for their own headline shows here. The most successful bands are the ones who have a real knack for improvements and it seems for Tonight Alive, they revisit Breaking & Entering, Listening and Wasting Away alongside their upcoming single The Edge as a means of showing they’re making prominent progress. 

For the headliners, embarking on the second of their two sold-out engagements at such a mighty venue is child’s play. And frontman Alex Gaskarth is a big kid with big dreams of, what he claims is, “total world domination”. Unlike majority of tours with bands putting weight on their freshest material to date, All Time Low indicate that in fact A Love Like Tour is more a greatest hits trip, opening with Do You Want Me (Dead?) off 2011’s Dirty Work. Their blink-182 style jokes don’t have an expiry date and neither do their huge sing-alongs in the form of Stella, Vegas or Six Feet Under The Stars. But they’re not the only conquering moments; putting up a good fight, The Irony of Choking on a Lifesaver and Somewhere in Neverland are brimming with just as much triumphant hooks and anthem goodness. 

World domination would require excelling in everything and the band from Baltimore show they can ditch the big stage production for an empty stage that sees the frontman clutching an acoustic guitar for Remembering Sunday and Therapy, hitting victory right on the head. If that wasn’t enough to serve up the title of champions, guest vocals from supporting band Tonight Alive’s singer Jenna McDougall on A Love Like War clarifies that their efforts haven’t gone to waste. Tonight might not be in a stadium, but All Time Low sure as hell play with stadium strengths and what’s certain is that there really is no love like A Love Like Tour.