Live Review: The Wonder Years - Electric Ballroom, London 08/11/2022
Situated between two days of called-off-but-still-basically-happening train strikes, it marked the London leg of The Wonder Years’ return to UK shores, and our first airing of tracks from their new album ‘The Hum Goes On Forever’, after the postponed anniversary show in Bournemouth two nights before. So, with the thousand-and-a-bit fans packing themselves like sardines into the majestic Electric Ballroom in Camden, hopes and expectations were high.
But first, as always, came the supports. This time, the Pennsylvania natives were joined by Save Face and Beauty School, both brilliant up-and-coming emo-ish punk-rock bands from New Jersey, US and Leeds, UK respectively — basically the same place though, right?
At first glance, with Leeds-based six-piece Beauty School crammed onto the already restricted stage, it seemed impossible for Beauty School to accomplish too much. They could barely move for want of their own instruments, after all. But front man Joe Cabrera, his green-blue hair basically invisible under the sanguine lights beading overhead, wouldn’t accept that. Bedecked in little more than beach wear — even just shorts were a bold move given the typically English rain outside — he seemed to stamp enough of a mark over the stage for the whole band. Having just played across the road a scant few weeks before, supporting The Dangerous Summer, the set saw songs lifted from their recently released debut album ‘Happiness’, released via Slam Dunk Records (so you know it’s going be good). And they were about everything you could want from pop punk. Pawn Shop Jewels, especially, saw the crowd led in an vitriolicly upbeat sing-along, while the slower Ekimae gave opportunity to show the band’s emotive chops.
Having only been a band for about three years, the quality on show suggests a bright future — especially when three years is the end of 2019, meaning a good two thirds of their tenure together was a little restricted when it came to live performances. A great half hour to kick-start both the show and the tour proper.
With matching red, prison-esque jumpsuits — ‘because they’re cool’ — the pressure was on for Save Face to quite literally save face a mere twenty minutes later. But, as they break into opener ‘Sharpen Your Teeth’, the stage presence alone was just insane. Part swagger, part stagger, and all lunacy, frontman Tyler Povanda’s frenzied careening around the stage was practically a force of nature — when he asked you to clap, you bloody well went along with it out of fear of upsetting the crazy man and his equally giving-it-all band-mates (or perhaps inmates might be more fitting). It was as show stopping a set as any support’s likely ever had before: moments of theatrics gave way to manic shrieks and piercing guitar, elements of post-hardcore blending into frenzied, frantic, vaudevillian fun that had the crowd shouting and moshing along.
It’s hard not to compare Save Face to a lot of the other bands of the same gothic horror, punky scene; for one — if not the originators of the style, certainly the pioneers — My Chemical Romance, or perhaps early Panic! At The Disco; or, a little closer to home, UK’s own Creeper. Each have the same performative, almost dramatic aspects, along with, broadly speaking, a mix of darkly post-hardcore and macabre pop.
There are similarities, sure, but enough differences too that it’s easy to see that they’d made it their own, and that’s the point. ‘This band’s about being unapologetically yourself, and saying fuck you to anyone who has a problem with that’, Tyler tells us — and God knows Save Face are very much themselves.
Having first come to the UK in 2019, three years ago, it’s not much of a leap to guess there were a good thousand or so new fans in the venue anxiously waiting for their next return. In the meantime, final tracks ‘Preoccupied’ and ‘Another Kill For The Highlight Reel’ put a temporary end to the proceedings, giving the crowd a much needed breather before The Wonder Years arrived — as if the two supports already weren’t enough.
Another half an hour passed with nary a peep from the stage bar a brief sound check — until the venue music started getting a teeny bit quieter, the pauses a teeny bit longer, until suddenly cutting out altogether. And, as silence reigned, and the flashlight held by one of the band’s crew members began a-flashing, the crowd’s anxiety grew..: until, blessedly, the long-awaited six piece strolled on stage, ready to raise the roof. Bursting straight into ‘Low Tide’ and ‘Dismantling Summer’ the latter seeing the crowd burst into chaotic motion, The Wonder Years had very much arrived. It would take yet another ocean of arms, heads, and the occasional leg accompanied the hundreds and thousands of souls screaming in a cacophonous harmony of ‘Local Man Ruins Everything’ directed at the stage before the first moment of relative calm descended: only for the sake of plugging the new album that was for sale at the back of the venue, however, and then it was right back to it.
The setlist seemed quite nicely split between each album, not that any outside observed would be able to tell. ‘Old Friends Like Lost Teeth’, for instance, a non-single from said new album, was still met with a staggering volume of voices shouting the words back, almost rivalling the volume that met the oldie-but-goodie ‘Cardinals’. The latter, honed to renewed perfection over its recent anniversary shows, also apparently served as home for ‘the calmest crowd surf’ frontman Dan ‘Soupy’ Campbell had ever seen. And that says it all — despite the relative volatility of the crowd, the sheer wall of passion thrust from the nearly crying pack of pop-punk pundits arrayed to watch them, it felt like a community. Pretty much everyone knew pretty much every word. Despite the energy and chaos, it was controlled and adoring.
And that adoration seemed to go both ways. Melancholy ballad ‘Flowers Where Your Face Should Be’ saw the band practically serenade their fans, the words seeming to be directed to each and every person in the crowd, while a chorus of phone torches tried to outshine the spotlights on stage. There was such a sense of intimacy, even with the security interspersed between the band and the crowd, that sadly was lost with some of the (no less brilliant) rowdier songs. Take ‘Summer Clothes’, for instance, a stand out from ‘The Hum Goes On'. With Campbell seated tranquilly at the front of the stage, they might as well have been busking to some people passing by on the street with how impromptu and close it felt.
The positivity did have to end eventually, however. It wouldn’t be a Wonder Years gig without at least a little bit of poignant, piercing pain. Case in point: ‘Raining In Kyoto’. One of four songs shown airing from 2018’s Sister Cities — along with the phenomenal, vitriol-fuelled ‘Pyramids of Salt’ and the catchy, anthemic ear worm of a title track — it’s been a safe bet in sets for years, and for good reason. It’s haunting, beautifully so, tearfully raging at the world over losing the ones we love. Admitting that the song felt raw again from the wearing away of any callous over the years away from touring, each heartfelt line felt almost like a punch in the chest, both for the band and for everyone in the audience. Likewise, final-but-not-really-final song ‘Cigarettes & Saints’ — examining life, death, religion and blame, all at once — felt particularly impactful echoed by the myriad of men, women and everything in-between crying along.
Finally, after doing the ol’ go-off-stage-come-back-on-stage routine, it was time for the final track: crowd favourite ‘Came Out Swinging’. With Campbell joking about fearing for his safety if the band tried to leave without playing it — or perhaps only half-joking, with some of the more zealous fans staring bloody murder at the prospect — it was always going to be a safe bet, and the crowd lapped it up. As the pit transcended into a whirlpool, Charybdis itself sucking everyone in and spitting them back out over the barriers, the night could finally feel complete. And, as the band looked on almost in awe at the thousand-and-a-bit people in the packed Electric Ballroom, 3,500~ miles from Lansdale, Pennsylvania, the crowd-led bridge just felt needed.
Three fantastic sets from three fantastic bands, but then you’d never expect anything less than wondrous where The Wonder Years are concerned. Thanks for coming back so soon guys.
Words by James O’Sullivan
Photography by Kevin O’Sullivan
