The Wedding Present + more across Manchester Academy.
Simple Plan | State Champs | Maydayparade
O2 Victoria Warehouse
9th February 2024
Canadian pop-punks Simple Plan return to Manchester and O2Victoria Warehouse, for the first show in the city in four years. State Champs and Mayday Parade round off a line-up that promises to inject some sunshine into a bleak February evening.
Arriving at O2 Victoria Warehouse is always an occurrence prefaced by a degree of uncertainty as to how the night is going to unfold. What’s the sound going to be like? And are those working the box office able to differentiate between their arse and their elbow. It’s a game in which the outcome is impossible to predict.
On the one hand, we might be pleasantly surprised, as we were with shows from Rancid or Dropkick Murphys. We might, however, end up lamenting the fact that we ever even considered leaving the house (we’re looking at you, terrible London Grammar crowd). Tonight, as we brave the typically bleak February weather, the jury is very much still out.
We arrive inside just as tonight’s openers Mayday Parade announce their final song Jamie All Over, and despite typically being pulled from pillar to post before even stepping foot in the venue, the band have succeeded in establishing a party atmosphere we’ve rarely seen in the vacuous space.
It’s perhaps somewhat ironic when you take into account Mayday Parade’s idiosyncratic brand of miserable pop-punk, but it’s clear from the minute we arrive that tonight has done more to enthuse a contingent of teenage-emo-thirty-somethings than any line-ups we’ve seen in a long while.
It’s frustrating then, that as tonight’s main support, New York four-piece State Champs, take to the stage, the venue’s trademark cow shed acoustics make themselves known. Disappointing too, as it’s clear from the off that State Champs are no longer the pop-punk underdogs they once felt like. Indeed, as frontman Derek DiScanio prowls the stage whilst rattling through fan-favourites such as All You Are is History, Act Like That and Secrets, they’re destined for stages both bigger and better sounding than this one.
Not that you’d know it from the crowd reaction, however. For many in attendance, they’ve grown up with State Champs and to see them on such a lofty support slot surely feels like vindication for the last 15 years of support, and the rapturous response of those front and centre should tell they uninitiated all they need to know. The overall sound of their set however feels like something of a disservice, given how treble-y it is, especially given the fact that tonight will be plenty of people’s first impressions of the band.
Of course, State Champs aren’t the reason that 3000 people have packed into a roughly converted warehouse on the banks of Manchester Ship Canal. That reason would be Canadian pop-punks Simple Plan, and their first Manchester show since 2020.
Establishing the upbeat, pop-punk irreverence the band are known for, they walk onto the stage to The Imperial March from Star Wars. This however is quickly drowned out by screams from the crowd as the band take up their instruments and launch immediately into fan-favourite I’d Do Anything, promoting a rapturous response from an instantly baying crowd.
It sets the precedent for what’s to follow perfectly, as the band offset classic tracks with cover medleys, cartoon theme songs, and deeper cuts that go over the heads of us over the age of 30 – but hit home with the younger side of the band’s fans. Indeed, it feels like a testament to the band’s longevity, that they can emerge from the side of the stage and immediately eviscerate any cynical opinions born from the venue’s downsides.
Establishing a deft balance between nostalgia, current cultural relevance and the need to ensure everyone present is having a good time, tonight Simple Plan prove themselves to be a level pop-punk royalty many assumed they might not reach. Yet as they plough through fan-favourites such as When I’m Gone, Welcome to My Life or I’m Just A Kid, they harbour the talent, the chops and indeed the longevity to cement themselves as one of the big guns.
A cover of Wonderwall might seem like a trite inclusion given the sheer number of their own classic tracks at their disposal, but there’s no denying that on a chilly Manchester evening, it’s an unofficial anthem of the city that you’d be forgiven for thinking was Simple Plan’s biggest release, such was the crowd’s response.
Elsewhere, a confetti cannon keeps things upbeat and irreverent whilst showing we’re into the homestretch, but it’s the final two tracks in the form of Untitled, and Perfect, that show just how much a pop-punk from the mid ‘00s still means to so many. And even those of us that have been around the block a few times, can find nothing to knock with tonight’s performance. A better venue perhaps next time, but the fact remains that Simple Plan were, and remain to be, pop-punk stalwarts with an ability to blend the heartfelt and the humorous effortlessly.
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More from Simple Plan can be found on their website, Facebook and Twitter.
Dave Beech is a music writer based out of Manchester. Links to his work can be found over at his blog, Life’s A Beech, as well as his Louder Than War Author Archive. He also tweets as @Dave__Beech.
Photos by Liam Maxwell, he can be found here and he can be contacted here.
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