By Jase Walker
Keeping the swift plethora of shows this week, I’m off to Haarlem to catch Tonight Alive make their return after a fairly lengthy bit of radio silence. Taking up the main stage in Patronaat, which is easily one of my favourite spots when it comes to shows in the Netherlands, it’s time to grab my usual balcony perch. And along for the ride is Greywind to complete the set. There may only be two bands tonight but both are easily worth the time to get stuck into for a midweek show.
The venue opened with a bit of an unexplained delay today that ran over by about 20 minutes so hopefully the (rather long) queue gets into the venue before Greywind are set to start!
Evidently the delay may have been down to knocking back set times a bit as Greywind gets things going a bit later than expected but I’m ready to get my ears blasted! The band walks on to the chorus of applause and cheers and it seems the crowd are just as hyped for these as Tonight Alive.
Their singer appeared slightly later with a fantastic aesthetic of yellow pea coat and red gloves and storms around the stage, kneeling down to sing right at people dancing down the front. The whole band is visibly active on stage with both guitarists pacing around the stage and rocking out while their singer maintains much of the focus due to her stage theatrics.
These Irish emo rockers are a fantastic choice to support Tonight Alive on these dates (Slam Dunk excluded), with similar vibe and great performers in their own right. I do feel the sound could be a little bit meatier if they had a live bass player though but that’s not always going to be the way every band works though. Barring that they’re a great watch, tons of energy and clearly look like they not only enjoy the art of the performance but love and believe in the music they’re playing.
At one point their singer kneels in to sing part of a song along with someone down the front who’s been visibly singing along and even doing it hand in hand, if this doesn’t scream fantastic performance art then I dunno what does. After asking if it’s someone’s birthday, she says she’s going to grab a gift and returns quickly wearing a classic nurses hat, asking if people like it, proper commitment to the bit and I love it.
So much of their sound has influences of the emo greats that came prior such as My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, properly full of fun, bouncy energy, catchy hooks and big choruses. Overall a fantastic start but I do wish they had a live bass player to really beef the sound up a bit.
And finally, Tonight Alive is ready to smash out a headliner length set and I can’t wait.
The moment they kick things off I can feel the bass and drums pound my chest and the energy in the room immediately jumps as people sing along and start waving their arms around. I mean to say that this crowd has been waiting for this sort of return for a whole seems to be a gross understatement. This is one of those shows where I feel like I’m a passive fan caught in the middle of an army of people who are much much more into it, it’s a wonderful energy tk be surrounded by.
It’s easy to write off Tonight Alive as an emo band if you’re not particularly familiar with them and while there’s definitely that sort of vibe there in parts, they’ve got more of a straight post-hardcore kind of feel overall with solid pop-punk hooks all over the place. The likes of Holding Absence, PVRIS, Vukovi are probably closer to the feeling of Tonight Alive but considering how long Tonight Alive have been in the game it’s probably more accurate to say they influenced those bands first!
The band barely has to even try to get the crowd singing along to basically every song either, everyone here is fully invested in the music and is intent on letting Tonight Alive know that their return is overdue.
I genuinely can’t fault how fantastic Tonight Alive sounds, massive and meaty and really delivers every song with exceptional punch while their singer jumps around the stage and gets close and personal with the fans while belting the words out. This is exactly how you do a no frills, no fancy stage production show.
Passing the halfway point on ‘The Fire, this provokes a strong reaction from the audience with the centre of the crowd giving way to a pit of frantic movement and the first crowd surfers.
A switch of pace sees their singer take a seat at the front of the crowd with an acoustic guitar while someone from the audience dutifully volunteers to hold the mic for the duration of the song which is definitely going to get a bit tiring. To their credit they kept the mic up for the whole song and the audience enjoyed a nice intimate sing-along for the ride too but it doesn’t stop there, the guitar needs some tuning so we get an impromptu acapella song to fill the time in.
As we move towards the end of the show, their singer makes a brave choice to get stuck into the crowd for their pop goes punk cover of ‘Little Lion Man’ from Mumford and Sons. The circle pit admittedly starts a bit more slowly than I anticipated but the moment the main part kicks in the mania begins and the circle of running people swells in numbers to take up most of the floor area!
For the last remaining two songs, the crowd is going full speed towards the peak, no encore and no time left for questioning, it’s time to let loose. What a triumphant return for Tonight Alive and Haarlem has given them their all for the whole evening. Great stuff!