By Jase Walker and Hannah Ross
After spending a somewhat low energy day following a night of screaming my lungs out elsewhere in the country, I’m back at my local spot, Melkweg. It’s absolutely fucking freezing and I’m slowly ambling into the venue and looking forward to warming myself up with a bunch of high energy pop punk/metal/whatever…
Today’s Set It Off show has three other bands in tow with the first starting extremely early and I hope I don’t miss too much with how slow the line is moving. So for the ensemble cast, we have TSS (The Sunday Sadness), Call Me Amour and Point North. It seems to be a show with extremely tight changeovers so let’s see if they can keep things running smoothly.
Sadly I’ve missed about 15 minutes or so of TSS but I’m fully enjoying what I’ve walked into, similar to the likes of Ghøstkid with some super layered synthy vocals backing up the singer against newer Bring Me The Horizon riffs. For an opening act they are loud as fuck as well, I normally appreciate a solid low end in my live performances but this might be a little bit too overpowering.
I’m really enjoying the music though: wow! The influence from Bring Me The Horizon and (later) Linkin Park is unmistakable though. The crowd here is absolutely down to play along with the band’s audience interaction though, and TSS are doing a great job of owning the stage show as well. I’m also quite blown away by how packed the venue is already too, probably explains the crazy long queue I guess. Sadly it seems TSS only got 25 minutes for their set which is mad short but they’ve left quite an impression on me so will be giving them a bit of an investigation.
Next up tonight is Call Me Amour. I had the privilege to review their latest EP and I’ve been keen to see them again after seeing them in Manchester quite a while back. Walking on to a brief monologue from Alan Watts, the energy is immediately turned up to full and it’s time for a bit of fun and looking around the room it seems that everyone else is feeling that too.
I was wondering how long it’d take before the singer dived into the audience and it’s literally on the second song, this guy loves getting stuck into the thick of it all. After getting everyone to join in with a synchronous jump, they kick off the song while he slowly makes his way back to the stage to continue the performance. This is exactly what I was anticipating for these guys and they’re delivering it and heaps more. No stranger to strobes either and I seem to be right in the direct shining of it which makes typing some notes a bit harder when you can’t see what you’re doing.
Call Me Amour gets probably one of the best responses to the “kneel and jump” thing that I’ve seen as well, from my balcony spot I could see near enough the whole venue from the front to back all get involved. And finally they talk about a headline show which is something I’ve been hoping to see for a while now!
The singer, being the legitimate mad bastard that he is, runs up to the balcony near me, directs the crowd to open a pit and then ends up swinging off the balcony before jumping back up, madness. Again due to the setup for tonight it was a fairly short set but I’ve got a taste for them again now and I’ll definitely be seeing their headline show!
With a… Cowboy(?) introduction for Point North, they take the stage and it’s time for some more contemporary emo with fat riffs. Point North barely even has to try with working the audience, they’re already going bonkers and smashing into each other in the pit. There’s strong influences on show here and the main one that sticks out is (newer) Papa Roach as well as a big bit of pop for good measure.
It’s almost as if Point North’s formative years were shaped by the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack. The size of the pit in the middle of the crowd steadily grows larger as the set goes on with some quite puzzled looking people on the edges of it. Point North are surprisingly much more heavy and technical than I initially expected too, dropping some real gurn-worthy breakdowns at times. At one point the pit opens up again with one lad bravely beckoning people as he stood in the middle, it looked like a pretty tough convergence but looks like he took it like a champ.
My attention is very much divided between the band smashing it on stage and the same group of people constantly surging into each other any chance they get. Point North have been great fun to experience and having a first encounter be a show like this is something that cements a band in your memory like no other. Ridiculously fun set!
And finally, the main course for tonight’s event, Set It Off. It’s pretty clear that this is a sold out event considering how rammed the venue is by this point, the venue floor is shoulder to shoulder all the way to the back doors. Set It Off opting to use Europe’s ‘ The Final Countdown’ as their introduction track, the crowd screams the main chorus as well as its iconic melody but it’s time for riffs, let’s have it.
After they walk on, the room is filled with deafening screams and the performance is now properly underway and everyone here knows every single word.
Even the band themselves seem surprised at how fierce the Amsterdam audience has been right from the start. The moment the pit gets going I watch several lines of people surge through further back in the crowd to join in the focal point of the madness. ‘Fake Ass Friends’ has clearly been a big hit with their fans, there’s barely anyone here who doesn’t have their arms raised in the air while singing every word with gusto.
Set It Off are absolutely on fire with this show though: constant movement, running around, acting out the lyrics to each song, immensely energetic. The production only needs one word to describe it too: bright. There’s no special gimmicks or anything in use here, just a ton of lighting that uses more or less every possible colour permutation and seems like an education on the colour wheel.
I’ve been watching the pit throughout the set and it’s great seeing pit etiquette being observed at all times, anyone who goes down is pulled back up in seconds, people are being checked if they’re okay and it just seems like great fun from where I am. This show has been fascinating to me as although I do like Set It Off anyway, I’m very much a complete newbie compared to what is essentially the entirety of this audience.
I am not understating this at all when I say that every single person in this place knows every single word to every single song, it’s quite incredible. I wasn’t expecting the singer and drummer to switch roles either but this is happening for a deep cut, I’d say the screams indicate that people have been wanting this but literally every song gets the same deafening noise so it’s all the same in the best way.
On this freezing Monday evening in Amsterdam, I struggle to decide who blew the roof off the place harder, Set It Off or the crowd themselves. Absolutely phenomenal show that I’m glad I was able to catch as it stomps around Europe and then the UK. Absolutely incredible show.
- Photos taken at Manchester O2 Ritz on 20 February 2025.
- All photos © Hannah Ross/Über Rock.
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