Live Review: Hellogoodbye & The Dangerous Summer - The HMV Institute Temple, Birmingham - 2/6/2011

The Dangerous Summer, pop-punks U2, tear apart their setlist by opening up with 'Surfaced', Frontman Aj Perdomo barely gives himself any time to breathe between verses and the energy that the entire band put in is inspiring and incredible. Even new songs like 'No Ones Gonna Need You More' which oddly has a very Bob Dylan-esque strumming pattern is performed with such intensity, you'd think it was written years ago. Despite requests for the bands recently leaked song 'Work in Progress', the band laugh it off and are overwhelmed by the reception the song has garnered as well as the amount of people asking for it. 'Never Feel Alone' is performed with more passion and such freshness that was found on the album and as the band exit the stage perspirating, it only leaves the crowd wanting more and more.

It's been a while since Hellogoodbye came to the UK and the last time they did they were breaking the Top 40, despite taking their time with a second album, it's nice to see that there is still a dedicated fanbase still obsessed with the band as they were when the first album came out. The emphasis is more on tracks from their recent release 'Would it Kill You' with multi-instrumentalist Andrew Richards slowly dehydrating beneath a thick jumper, switching between ukelele, acoustic guitar and electric guitar whilst the rest of the band were struggling to fit on the stage.

Old songs translate better live than they sounded on the band's first album, 'Zombies! Aliens! Vampies! Dinosaurs!', 'Baby It's Fact' ended in an explosive Sgt. Peppers-esque wall of feedback, with every band member playing their instrument as loudly and as fastly as humanly possible ending in a sudden stop. The band don't omit songs from their debut self-titled EP either and perform 'Shimmy, Shimmy Quarter Turn' as well as'"Dear Jamie, Sincerely Me' to a very energetic crowd, garnering clap-alongs with pretty much every song on their setlist.

'Here (In Your Arms)' was a personal highlight and a crowd favourite due to the amount of radio exposure the song had when it first came out, the entire crowd sang along and despite the synth-pop sound of Hellogoodbye being cutesy, gimmicky and cliché when that album first came out, the band have matured into creating some music with depth and have added that depth to their older songs.

Words by George Gadd