10 Years in One Night with All Time Low in London

On Saturday, the American pop-punk band All Time Low finished their UK tour with support from the British horror-punk band Creeper in the Alexandra Palace in London. The weather was a mess and due to snow, we made our way to venue an hour before the entry started, thinking it gave us more than enough time to get into the venue. The entry was very slow since they checked bags, ID’s and our bodies before letting us in. Sounds reasonable so far, but my back got checked about three times, because no one really knew what they were doing, and we also missed the whole Creeper set apart from two songs. Therefore, the entry was unfortunate for us but probably very fortunate for our safety, but considering that it was extremely cold, the venue could have sorted this a little bit better.

Soon after Creeper ended, All Time Low started their first set of the night. That’s right – the boys played two whole sets. The first set was every song of their first album “So Wrong, It’s Right” to celebrate its tenth birthday this year. They kept the stage scenery very simple with a picture in the design of the album cover and didn’t interact with the audience a lot, apart from a few standard penis jokes (an All Time Low concert wouldn’t be an All Time Low concert without penis jokes). In general, their mood seemed a bit rushed and their usual energy wasn’t really there. This was especially obvious when Jack said before “Come One, Come All” that this is finally going to be the last time they would ever play this song ­– someone clearly was happy to get it over and done with.

We didn’t really expect this to change throughout the second set, but the events of the night took a turn. After the stage got rebuild for over an hour (to be honest, how extra can a band be?) they returned, and the energy totally shifted. Instead of a curtain background, there suddenly was a fancy looking LED board and even a catwalk. The first of many loads of confetti already flew in the audience after the second song, the new stage scenery showed colourful moving pictures fitting to the cover designs of their albums and, for the very first time, they included pyrotechnic in their show. When singer Alex Gaskarth greeted the audience again by saying that “it’s been ten years since they saw us last and that it’s crazy how fast time flies”, it became clear that their first set was intended to give off the “bad” vibes to show how much they improved and changed over the years. And wow, did they change. It’s normal to laugh during All Time Low shows (hence the penis jokes) and it’s also normal to cry when Alex sings the ballads “Therapy” or “Remembering Sunday” on his own, but this time they put a lot more effort into their show all together – joke wise, emotional wise and show wise. Especially when they played their song “Missing You”. They introduced it with a video of their fans stating why they love All Time Low and how their music helped them improve and overcome difficult situations, and emotions boiled over in the room. They played a mix of all their albums and a total 26 songs. Having seen this band live more than ten times, it’s safe to say that they never really disappoint but continue to improve.