A wet Cardiff is the location of All Time Low’s second gig on the UK leg of the Everyone’s Talking world tour and it’s a sold-out show at the Utilita Arena.
The weather didn’t dampen people’s spirits though as the crowd got involved in Taylor Acorn’s set to open the show. She kept the crowd hooked, powering through tracks including Poster Child, Greener and Psycho.
Credit: Lizi Birt
While Taylor was up and down the catwalk showing off her stunning vocals, drummer Connor and guitarist Ricky were showing off their talents on the main stage, and adding an extra special element to Taylor’s set.
One of my favourite bands, Mayday Parade, was up next and as usual they did not disappoint. They played a mix from their 20+ year long career, although the bulk of songs came from A Lesson in Romantics. There were classics and fan favourites including Jersey, Black Cat, Oh Well, Oh Well, and Jamie All Over as well as newer songs like Pretty Good to Feel Something and Under My Sweater.
Credit: Lizi Birt
There was high energy throughout, although in my bias opinion, it was too short a set.
As the lights went out, All Time Low frontman Alex Gaskarth took to the stage via a set of stairs on the runway to belt out [Cold Open] before being joined by the rest of the band – and the confetti cannons – for SUCKERPUNCH. This was a nice start as it included two of my favourite songs.
Alex tells the crowd that they aimed to cover every era of All Time Low and he wasn’t wrong as there were classics like Remembering Sunday (which featured Taylor Acorn), Weightless and Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t), as well as more modern tracks from the new Everyone’s Talking album like The Weather, and Butterflies.
Credit: Lizi Birt
There were also fan favourites such as Something’s Gotta Give and Dark Side of Your Room.
The band were full of ‘bad jokes’ and vibed well with each other, with Jack Barakat scolding Alex for stopping for a drink instead of talking to the crowd and Alex later interrupting Jack as payback. It was also nice to hear the Cardiff and Wales means a lot to the band, as Alex’s mum is Welsh and the first UK show they played was in Barfly (RIP) in Cardiff as support for Plain White Ts.
Dotted throughout the set were lovely anecdotes and thanks to the crowd for supporting live music, as well as a funny story about a guy swearing at the band during the Glasgow show the day before because he wanted to hear the older music.
Credit: Lizi Birt
The entire set was a party and the band (and crowd) made a young lad’s day as they ‘crowdsurfed’ a guitar pick to him as it was his first All Time Low show.
The party continued right to the end of the night as the entire arena erupted into a sing-a-long to arguably All Time Low’s biggest hit Dear Maria, Count Me In.
You could see that despite performing for more than 20 years, the entire band were having so much fun on stage and that really fed the crowd’s energy throughout too.
The band made a comment about continuing for another 20 years and let’s hope they do so!
Credit: Lizi Birt
I also want to say the set and video design – which at times was reminiscent of a talk show with ‘on air’ signs and cutting to ‘ad breaks’ – was great, and the inclusion of the inflatable waving arms was a fun way to end the show.
