The Audio Perv

By Michel Dussack and Emilia D’Albero

On January 29th, a varied rock tour featuring four distinctive bands came to New York to play a sold out show at The Studio at Webster Hall. These four bands were the post-hardcore English band ‘We Are The Ocean’, the alt-rock Scottish band ‘Twin Atlantic’, the pop punk Michigan based band ‘The Swellers’, and a band from England that encompasses a bit of all three of these styles, ‘You Me At Six’. Because of the younger crowd that some of these bands attract, the show started at 6:30, and ‘We Are The Ocean’ was the first band to take the stage.

Usually, when you’re the first band to play a four band bill, you’re playing to a half empty room, but the dedication of ‘You Me At Six’s fans who showed up hours early meant that ‘We Are The Ocean’ were playing to a near capacity crowd and that was definitely something they worked in their favor. The five piece band looked crowd on such a small stage, but vocalist Dan Brown repeatedly jumped into the crowd to energize everyone and to start mosh pits. Despite nearly everyone in the crowd being unfamiliar with their material, reaction to their set was overwhelmingly positive and it didn’t take long for people to start pushing closer to the stage, and even crowd surfing onto it. As the band that had to work the hardest to get the crowd’s approval, they succeeded and there was quite a line to buy a CD at their merch table after their set.

Next up were ‘Twin Atlantic’, a band that’s gaining a massive following overseas with high profile support slots for ‘My Chemical Romance’, ‘Biffy Clyro’ and ‘Blink-182’. Most recently, they support ‘AWOLNATION’ on their U.S. tour and played the grand ballroom of Webster Hall about two months ago. Even in the short period of time since then, the amount they’ve improved as a live band is staggering, with every song in their set improving. Perhaps it was partly due to the fact that the crowd was fairly familiar with them, but it seemed that the energy the band put out couldn’t be contained in such a small space. Most impressive of all though, is that while ‘Twin Atlantic’ are indeed very much a straight up alt-rock band, they could easily be considered the least heavy of all the bands of this tour (especially when compared to the post-hardcore ‘We Are The Ocean’ preceding them), yet they still got a great reaction from the crowd. Right before their second song, ‘The Ghost of Eddie’ singer and rhythm guitarist Sam McTrusty told everyone that when they played the song at home, the crowd bounced up and down, and the now absolutely packed venue happily obliged him to do the same. They crammed 7 songs into their 30 minute time slot, and nearly every song was a hit – most notably two of the last three songs of their set – ‘Yes I Was Drunk’ and ‘Free’. Older tracks such as ‘You’re Turning Into John Wayne’ got great reactions from the bigger fans in the venue, though they seemed a bit lost on people who were only familiar with their newer album. At some point during the night, McTrusty announced that the band would be played Warped Tour, and I’m pretty sure anyone who catches this tour will make it a point to see their set when they play.

‘The Swellers’ were next up, and were the first band to be able to play a set longer than 30 minutes, and they certainly did not disappoint. They set the bar ridiculously high for their set when they came out and started playing a ridiculously heavy cover of the theme to ‘28 Days Later’ which went right into ‘Runaways’. They made very few stops in their set, but the first one came in the form of vocalist and guitarist Nick Diener introduced the band and mentioned how they were the only band on the bill from America. Throughout their set (which I believe was 13 songs and lasted around 45-50 minutes) they played as though they had something to prove, and to a certain extent, they did. Being the only American band on a tour in America means that every night, they’re proving to the crowd, as well as the other bands, that rock is indeed alive in America, and they did a damn fine job of doing it. Crowd surfing reached a new level during their set, with fans swarming the stage. At one point, one of them knocked over Diener’s mic, yet he somehow caught it and kept playing guitar with the same hand, a sign of his virtuosity as a live performer. They closed their set with their biggest song, “The Best I Ever Had” and were gone, in my opinion, far too early, leaving only one other band to play.

Finally, around 9:30, ‘You Me At Six’ walked on stage and before even a single note was played, the screams from their fans pierced ears. The energy of their set was totally different, though still extremely high. Rather than crowd surfing and moshing, there were surges in the crowd, with everyone wanting to get closer to the band, especially vocalist Josh Franceschi. The band played 11 songs, though to the crowd who had waited for hours to catch their set, it must’ve seemed like a blur. Personally, I would’ve rather have seen them switch spots with ‘The Swellers’, as they brought a much more energetic set, though from a numbers perspective, there were clearly way more people there to see You Me At Six.

This show was truly remarkable in that there were four terrific bands delivering over three hours of music for a ticket price of $15. Indeed, this tour is a great value, especially considering the popularity of the UK bands back home. If you have plans to attend this tour, make sure you show up early to catch ‘We Are The Ocean’ and ‘Twin Atlantic’ as they’ll rock your face off. And if you don’t have plans to attend, I’m not really sure what you’re waiting for.

All photos courtesy of Michel Dussack