Although it’s barely February, the upstairs venue of the O2 Academy has the room temperature of a Bikram yoga studio — practically exploding at the sides with punters, who’ve all piled in to catch two of pop punk’s fastest rising bands. First up, Florida‘s VersaEmerge are the manifestation of a much- repeated trend, that when any band becomes hugely successful, record labels demand their A&R people find a clone band to make sure they get in on the action. In VersaEmerge’s case, that band is 2010’s runaway success story, Paramore. That’s not to say that Versa Emerge don’t have solid, catchy tracks of their own, with Figure It Out and Mind Reader offering buzzsaw guitar riffs and choruses that have the room slamming their devil horns in the air. But with Sierra Kusterbeck’s angelic vocals and their punchy variety of pop punk, comparisons with Paramore are inevitable —and not unwelcome.
This is also something you could apply to tonight’s headliners, just without the front woman or complete timeliness. We The Kings (pictured), also from the Sunshine State, have been plugging away since 2003 and have just finished album number three, but, in a way, are enjoying the resurgence of their genre just as much as VersaEmerge. With Blink-182’s reformation and All Time Low in the charts, We The Kings could easily ride this wave to glory. During their set they fire off 75 minutes’ worth of bubblegum choruses over the top of guitar riffs that feel as if they’ve been soaked in Red Bull, with tracks like Rain Falls Down and the closing Check Yes Juliet. Both sound as if they could have been pulled from a 90s teen flick soundtrack, with their lyrics of doomed romance under the stars and break-ups. It’s not startling, or anything more than proficient, musically speaking, but it drives the crowd, most of whom were probably born in the mid-90s, completely bonkers. Which is all that counts really.
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