Live Review: Mayday Parade – 11th Anniversary Self-Titled Tour – Troxy, London

Despite being slightly delayed due to obvious reasons, Mayday Parade have finally got around to playing their self-titled anniversary tour. Originally 10 years since its release – now 11 years – the tour promised to be a great celebration of such a highly acclaimed album in the scene. I just had to head down to The Troxy to join in the celebrations.

Kicking the night into full swing right off the bat, AS IT IS took to the stage bringing with them the energy of one of their own headline shows. The first mosh pits erupted quickly into their set, as they played through new track ‘IDGAF’. Despite some of their more pop stylings, the band showed how punk they were when frontman Patty Walters pestered security to “look alive” after they didn’t even attempt to catch the first crowd surfer of the night, with Walters commenting “What? Do you want me to catch them?”. Great start to the night.

In what I think was a weird choice, the stage desk played some Real Friends in the interval before they came out. Once the real Real Friends came out their set continued to feed the audience energy really getting them warmed up. Their set went down well as they played through both recent tracks like ‘Storyteller’ as well as past bangers like ‘Late Nights In My Car’.

Finally with the audience in attendance thoroughly warmed up it was time for the main attraction of the night. Mayday Parade came out to much excitement from the fans in the room, who have been waiting too long for this show to actually take place. It was clear that people had spent the last ten years revising the lyrics of the band’s self-titled album as they sang through song after song as the band played through it from start to finish.

Of course the band couldn’t just stop after only playing their self-titled, the crowd wanted more and the band delivered, coming back out to play another handful of tracks. Coming out with ‘Kids Of Summer’ it was clear that the audience weren’t gonna give up as they pushed the energy continuing to sing each song word for word. It was great to see frontman Derek Sanders taking some time to talk about how much of a hard time it’s been over the last few years and how good it is to be back. Is it really a Mayday Parade show if they don’t play ‘Miserable At Best’? Well I can’t answer that, because that’s what followed. The set finished with a final push from both the audience and band as they played ‘Jamie All Over’, making for a great end to the set.

The show had so much energy from start to finish, from the great support, to the excellent playthrough of such an iconic album, the night really did celebrate and show how music bonds the scene together – with everyone in attendance singing their hearts out.