Angels & Airwaves @ Southampton Guildhall 14/4/08 (live review)

The anticipation of the crowd was in abundance for Tom Delong third time out, which could be seen as his mature approach to the genre. My night got off to a flyer when I was asked, ‘How does it feel to have such an important job?’, by what I would a kid I would expect to be from the target audience age, crushed against the barriers. I made him promise to go insane and that I wanted to be dodging people being thrown from the crowd.

The lights dimmed and what initially preceded was like a catherine wheel that refused to spin and you look at the person next to you with a slight apology in your eyes. The albums are polished, their perfect. You want a slight alternative, raw take on what you know at a gig, but the poor illegible vocals and lack of passion onstage was quite a disappointment. Nothing came from the crowd either, probably equally as dismayed. There was no movement, no crashing bodies. Then again you could tell that these were people who had grown up with Blink 182 and maybe dabbled in Boxcar Racer, this was a more mature gig dominated by the early twenty-something’s.

The first spark of life came, naturally, with ‘The Adventure’. He encouraged the audience then failed to deliver the kin of impact the song deserved.

The mediocrity continued until after forty minutes when they left the stage. At this point I only hoped it wasn’t over because otherwise you’re going to get LOTS of pissed people baying for blood.

Thankfully they returned with ‘Breathe’, belting out the lyrics ‘…I love you…’. I have no doubt the crowd will love them back. Also that break must have been needed as they came out and they finally pulled themselves together as a band and started to deliver. Then the solo performance of Blink 182 ‘Reckless Abandon’ really stirred the crowd. Cheap shot maybe, but it worked. Tom also started engaging with the crowd. Aside getting hit by a water bottle and ordering the crowd to commit murder, his honest banter was spot on and quite uplifting. Granted, mentioning the word Southampton in most sentences is going to win people over.