By Jase Walker
Clearly I’ve lost my marbles by this point as I’ve made the trip across the country again in the same weekend to catch even more pop punky goodness courtesy of Stand Atlantic. And in tow are Californian pop rockers Honey Revenge, who I had the pleasure of reviewing at the start of the year in Haarlem, as well as Australians Slowly Slowly.
Thanks to a resurgence of summer for the last few days of September, I’m a bit of a sweaty mess and quite thankful for a nice air-conditioned venue. Slowly Slowly choose to eschew a dramatic walk on as openers and opt to get things started because time is ticking for their set and they’ve got shit to do! I dunno what it is with bands from Australia but they always seem to have this fantastic knack for writing brilliant melodies and Slowly Slowly are another great example of this. Their style reminds me a bit of Holding Absence with solid riff writing and “floaty” songwriting that lets the singer really stand out with big vocal hooks. Alongside this there’s elements of Emarosa in their sound that channels a bit of 80s pop rock as well.
This is my regularly scheduled soapbox moment to reiterate that you shouldn’t pass off seeing support acts because you never know when one is going to absolutely blow you away like Slowly Slowly are doing right now. The 30 minutes of an opening act are absolutely crucial in getting people on side with your music and I can see that myself, along with the absolutely packed room have all been won over by Slowly Slowly. I’ve already made a point of messaging almost everyone I know telling them they need to know about Slowly Slowly, this is a fine example of an opener being absolutely fucking spectacular!
It’s good to see Honey Revenge again for the second time this year, although I’m missing their much more sparkly outfits from their headline sets. It’s fantastic to get to see these kicking out their great brand of real fun pop rock again though. If you like the sort of stuff that bands like Vukovi, Emarosa, and Paramore do then you’ll fully dig their stuff.
As well as the music being great to listen to, it’s worth mentioning how fantastic they are visually. Honey Revenge bounce around the stage constantly and you can really tell they absolutely love what they do. There’s seldom a moment where they all don’t have massive smiles on their faces and that alone makes Honey Revenge such a joy to watch. We’ve even got crowd surfers getting to the stage and jumping back in as well, the vibe for a Honey Revenge show is immaculate and seeing everyone having a wild time again at their show truly warms the heart.
Honey Revenge’s music at a real base level is such incredible fun, not only that but the band tries to epitomize that at their shows. Their singer is fearless getting stuck into the crowd, right in the middle of everyone bouncing around she’s right there singing along with the throngs of people bouncing around her. Honey Revenge sound absolutely fucking brilliant, every single part of the band is properly audible, no muddiness, all killer no filler. Great set, great show, great band.
And finally, Stand Atlantic. The room darkens and their singer appears on their own drenched in scarlet red light before the rest appear, it’s big headline intro time. This is exactly the sort of quality you want from a headline show, Stand Atlantic sound fucking massive and the whole crowd is already losing their minds from the start.
Stand Atlantic have one sole mission for tonight: good music, good vibes and that’s exactly what they’re delivering. The fact that the floor is shaking under my feet shows that the sound guy for this show knows exactly what they’re doing, especially considering that everything else is properly crisp as well. Big fat riffs, unrelenting energy, and beats that you can feel smashing your chest, I am in my element.
People are jumping on stage and generally losing their mind and Stand Atlantic’s singer is at least trying to make sure people don’t lose various belongings by holding up a shoe and and apple watch, gotta look after your crowd. I’m having one of those moments where I realise how bands that look like they’re having a great time on stage are such fun to watch as opposed to whatever metal band that chooses to look stoic and tough on stage. It’s perfectly okay to bang out meaty riffs like Stand Atlantic are doing while having a goofy grin on your face and doing bunnyhops. We’re treated to a guest spot from a singer for a song that was apparently here the last time they played Eindhoven as well. They’ve also had to make a deal with security for more crowd surfing but at the expense of stage diving which seems fair I guess. Followed up by the Dutch crowd giving the band a quick lesson in Dutch birthday songs.
It’s a pretty long-winded way of saying that Stand Atlantic have been a fucking fantastic and to watch and experience. The more I see bands putting out the sort of music that you can sing along to and generally just have a fun time to, the more it stands out to me that this is the sort of ideal that bands should strive for. This show has truly been a fantastic performance to witness, Stand Atlantic have delivered the sort of headline set that I genuinely think any touring band should aim to meet.
Every single band that’s played tonight has put on an incredible performance and I hope every other date on this tour has and will be the same because these are the sort of shows you should tell people that they should have been there for. My heart is full, this is how you should leave a gig.
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