Live Review: Papa Roach - O2 Kentish Town Forum, London 18/04/2019
Juggernaut’s of nu-metal Papa Roach headlined two nights at London’s O2 Kentish Town Forum this month.
Tonight’s line-up was insanely good with Nothing More, A and Papa Roach. This was my fourth time seeing Nothing More and I LOVE their show every time, with so much movement and craziness on stage they are not just an incredible bunch of musicians but incredible performers overall. Their set started off with a loud boom (which didn’t catch me off-guard I swear!) and flashing lights, the band came running on, heading to their spots whilst vocalist Johnny wasted no time and started climbing the Cyber-Punk signature Nothing More live apparatus that adorned the centre of the stage. At the top of the apparatus was a siren which Johnny was going crazy with and creating an intense atmosphere in the venue, what an incredible way to start your set!
Nothing More played all of the expected classic’s in their arsenal from ‘Go To War’ to ‘Jenny’ and of course ‘This Is The Time (Ballast)’. Being the opening act, they were only on for around forty minutes which was a little disappointing as I could watch them for hours, but they honestly couldn’t have played a better set with the time given, it was bloody brilliant!
On to the main support A, these guys were huge back in 2002 with enormous hits ‘Nothing’, ‘Starbucks’ and ‘Something’s Going On’. So, I was really keen to catch these guys to soak up the nostalgia, it’s awesome to be able to see bands still around from when I was a teenager, head banging away to tunes of the past. You could tell that the whole band still loved being on stage as they cracked jokes throughout the set, these guys loved to have a laugh! Great all round set from A and it was brilliant to see so many younger people in the audience digging the music too, the reason I say that is because music has changed a fair bit since 2002 and metal and the surrounding sub-genre’s have evolved a bit so what I listened to when I was 17 may not be ‘cool’ to the seventeen year olds of today
Ok, next up is the phenomenal Papa Roach. They had a huge setlist of twenty-one tracks which had so many hits on it. Jacoby’s stage presence is something else, it was as if a king arrived on to the stage from the roar of excitement that he received! first up was ‘Last Resort’ which I was surprised by as I thought that was going to be the finisher but hey maybe they got sick of playing that one last and wanted to get it out the way! Tracks from their new album ‘Who Do You Trust?’ were chucked in too which the audience were going mad for. The venue was absolutely rammed by the time they were on stage, you really couldn’t move! I was wedged up against a wall to the side of the bar (of course). The stage looked bare due to Tobin and Jerry using Kemper’s, but this gave Jacoby and the boys plenty of space to move around, plus Kemper is totally the way forward for a lot of musicians of today, the sound quality is so damn good and there is no need for the classic stack to take up floor space!
Papa Roach’s new album ‘Who Do You Trust?’ is out now and I highly recommend you check it out, it’s not like their usual sound but what I love about this band is that they evolve and don’t become boring and what everyone expects to hear!
Words and Photography by Pete Herbert