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Updated: 13-Feb-2011

Paramore

If you want a bio, this isn’t the place for it. Try Wikipedia or somewhere. I’m sure the Paramore folks are lovely people (quite positive, actually; see the concert review below) but as far as I’m concerned their private lives are their own, and I’ve no interest to intrude. The music’s what I care about ... and I love this band. In fact, the whole family does.

I'm sure there are subtle distinctions, which the respective camps of aficionados would blow up into a Big Thing, but Paramore’s music puts me in mind of Avril Lavigne's best album, Under My Skin. Maybe even a bit stronger overall. If you're into emo, this is Fall Out Boy with a girl on vocals.

	All We Know is Falling Although this was the band’s first studio album, I didn’t know about it until after I’d already heard and bought and gotten to know Riot! I recall my thoughts at the time were, ok, I can see where Riot! came from. But All We Know is Falling deserves better than just to be regarded as just a kind of warm-up session for Riot! I think it would have become a favourite album if I’d heard it first, and there are some good tracks here, by any standards. My personal favourite is Whoa. The family thinks I am mad when I yippee and crank up the volume ... but, then, we get everybody singing. I was gutted they didn’t play this song at Christchurch. The other biggie off the album, of course, is My Heart. It is probably better known in its semi-acoustic form – see YouTube and The Final Riot! – but I still prefer the original, ragey, electric version. Just. Hey, they’re both good.
	Riot! I've got to stop watching Juice. Every time I do, something comes on and I've got to rush out and buy it. This one was a real surprise, though. The video I saw was Crush, which is ok. But when I listened to the CD, I realised that Crush is actually one of the weaker tracks. That's What You Get, Hallelujah, When it Rains – just fantastic. Definitely the best album I picked up that year.
	The Final Riot! And, if you can't get enough of Riot!, there's a live version, too – The Final Riot! – with a fabulous acoustic version of My Heart, a nod to Leonard Cohen with the first verse of his classic Hallelujah ahead of Paramore's own, and a huge Chicago crowd, in good voice and clearly in love with Hayley Williams. Well, who wouldn't be?
	Brand New Eyes It’s not very often that a pop song can carry off a sustained metaphor, or, for that matter, offer its young audience something resembling mature advice: Well make sure/to build your home brick by boring brick/or the wolf's gonna blow it down./Keep your feet on the ground/when your head's in the clouds. But that song, Brick by Boring Brick, my favourite from the album, does just that, and it’s worth the album price for that alone. And that is not to say the other tracks are too shabby, either. From the sleepy Misguided Ghosts to the creepy All I Wanted, this is one excellent album. In fact, the only track which doesn’t work for me is The Only Exception. Despite the neat bridge, which almost seems about to go somewhere, but then doesn’t, I find the beginning and end a bit dreary and repetitive. Never mind! One bum track on a whole album is nothing to complain about. Best album of 2009 and one of the best bands in its genre. Make sure you buy the version with Decode included as a bonus track.

... what’s next?

Quite recently, Paramore have run to a couple of covers – something by Kings of Leon and also Long Distance Call, a song from one of my other favourite bands, the French group, Phoenix. You’ll find it on Youtube if you want a look.

I love it.

I just hope they’re not too proud to put it on their next studio album.

Concert, 5 March 2010, Christchurch, New Zealand

Hmm, I thought. I’m conspicuously the oldest person here.... Mind you, our daughter (9 at the time) was conspicuously one of the youngest, so I guess we had the audience bracketed.

The warm-up act was novel ... and astonishingly acrobatic when Hayley Williams darted on stage to relieve the drummer of his sticks for a few moments. I’ve never seen anything quite like that before. Unfortunately, the visual impression was all I’ve left to take away. The acoustics at the venue – as is also the case at the Wellington Arena – are so crappy that I didn’t even catch the act’s name, let alone any of the song lyrics.

I’m not big on trying to read too much into song lyrics: this is pop music, not poetry, after all. But you can’t go too far wrong with lines like “no one is as lucky as us” (from Where the Lines Overlap). The band seems to be having a good time, and their joy is infectious.

And what a gracious group. From Hayley’s I ♥ NZ tee-shirt to Zac’s sprint from behind his drums to share the microphone, and convey his enthusiasm for our place. It doesn’t matter if some, or even all of it, was scripted. These guys are courteous – courtly, actually – and, well, just plain nice.

Well, all good things have to end, and I guess high-energy performances must end sooner than most. It wasn’t a long show: about an hour and 10, including the encore. Exhilarated, yet sad it had ended so soon, we wandered off back to our motel with the final bars of Brick By Boring Brick still ringing in our ears.

Ba da da da da ba ba!

Concert, October 2010, Wellington, New Zealand

Despite the crap venue – TSB Arena, a cavernous, charmless dump, with the acoustic properties of a urinal – the gig was a good night.

But not great. Not as good as the Christchurch concert overall, though there were a couple of individual bits that were better. At the beginning, the sound engineers were doing a lousy job, because the instruments were all but drowning out Hayley Williams's beautiful voice. Then the band broke for a set of three or four acoustic numbers, which were really good (I especially liked the unplugged rendition of 'Where the Lines Overlap') and the sound seemed to be better after that. But there were still some crap bits, too: Williams sang a country song which was bloody awful, and went on a bit of a monologging binge, too, which was self-indulgent, generally inane, and lacked the humility she'd previously shown in Christchurch.

Although the crowd was pretty spirited throughout, I think everyone must have been feeling much the same as I was, because it was a pretty lacklustre curtain call, after the singing and cheering during the show.

Oh, well.

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