Gig Review: 5 Seconds Of Summer (Friday 5th June, Birmingham)

It's been quite a year of music, continually shooting up with idolised bands and blatantly repetitive EDM (electronic dance music) and house tracks. But it feels as if the chart-topping successes of 2015 so far are the more widely recognised beats, dependent on technology that at the click of a button, causes an audience to bolt from their seats and rave. But where does this leave the artistry behind music? How are we to feel emotionally engaged with what we're listening to, in anger, sadness and euphoria? What about the talent of expressing emotions through instruments and voice to couple it?

A gig of voice and soul, Friday night was by far a faith-restoring experience. Support act, Hey Violet, was up first; an American pop-rock band who only recently got signed to Hi Or Hey Records. Made up of 4: Nia on drums, Rena on bass, Casey on lead guitar and Miranda who efficiently switched between guitar and keys, watching this band was evidence enough that the raw delicacy of music-making was important to them, just as it was in getting the audience to feel engaged with their music.

What's ultimately successful is their uniqueness and utter bad-ass attitude when performing: there's no holding back with this group. A personal rendition of Taylor Swifts's 'Blank Space' got the once placid and wary audience dancing at once. Although it's always sad to see an easily talented band receive little positive reception when they perform as a support act. Many of the fans to my side chose to stand still, clearly unaffected by the infectious vocals and compelling guitar riffs. But after some straight-up listening, they accepted the band's invigorating sound. Some of the clearly delicious parts of their art include the all-round catchy tunes, great guitar skills, utter crazed faces and mother-jerking zests of fervour. Half an hour later and this band had uncertain minds soon obsessing over their sound. If they're getting people talking now, there's no doubt that the future success of this band stands too tall for defeat just yet.

The day was full of waiting. At first it was the queuing for sound check, several hours later I was treated to a series of Fall Out Boy and Blink 182 tracks, no doubt a playlist made by the band. Stacey's Mum was a firm favourite play, it's such a classic, as was some top-ranking Green Day songs. After Hey Violet, the waiting resumed. The Final Countdown was the last song to be played and it was hard not to scream with elation. These guys can be real witty sometimes, and it's always just as surprising the moment they do something truly punny. The screens suddenly lit up with vibrant graphics reeling with news headlines, in some ways satirising online media, but in actual fact it was merely a testament to the band's oddity.

5 Seconds Of Summer are very obviously invested in their music, and if this be only a superficial statement then this whole review stands as a sad lie, provoking the power of music.  At the very beginning, the lights cut out and all that was left were the screams of fans and the music slowly fading in. This gave me time to focus on the music and built anticipation in a far more intense way than any other concert has done before. This continued as the beats kicked in, lights flashed and soon the whole band were on stage crying out End Up Here as if they were born to it. Throughout the concert, the strobe lighting packed power into each strum and into every beat, making the show far more dramatic than I'd ever hoped. It didn't end there. The band would run to each side of the stage, staring across the room, stricken by the crowd, epitomising the animate prowess of an established band. There were moments where I would cheer them on, screaming each lyric, where my pent-up excitement could finally be released. Then there were others, when I would be soothed by the soft vocals in songs such as Amnesia, followed by the juxtaposed frenzy of head-banging and hair-flipping tracks, Rejects and Green Day's American Idiot.

It rests that a 5SOS concert is an event undoubtedly greater than you could ever expect it to be, and their music alone stands as a marker for their inherent passion for music and their shared, diligent, dedicated ethos. They are much better live than on the album; but that just goes to show that each day, they are only getting better and better, and that their sound is getting even closer to the rock sound that inspires them to continue making music for audiences willing to listen. I would definitely recommend making a trip down to one of their concerts: it's not something I'm likely to forget.

More videos and pictures from the gig can be found on my Twitter