Tonight is the last night of Mayday Parade’s UK tour with Natives, For The Foxes and The Summer Set. It’s a stellar line up and the show most certainly does not disappoint. Sadly Cardiff’s Great Hall venue is not sold out tonight, but the wildly enthusiastic crowd more than make up for it. First up are the only British band on the bill, Natives. Formerly known as Not Advised, they’re back on the road re-establishing themselves, and for the first band of the night they do an incredible job. They get the crowd moving with tunes like ‘Big Plans’ and they go down an absolute storm.
Next up are New Jersey’s For The Foxes. This is their first time in the UK and they’re here to tour their fantastic new EP, ‘The Revolution’. They suffer from a couple of sound-related technical issues at the beginning of the set, but once they’re sorted a couple of songs in, they really find their feet. Their music is catchy, frontman Nick Dungo is an energetic bundle of joy and they’re a pleasure to watch. Ending on title track ‘The Revolution’, it’s safe to say the crowd are huge fans by the time they leave the stage.
The Summer Set arrive onstage to hysterical screams from emotional teenage girls and launch straight into one of their biggest hits, ‘Chelsea’. Again, they suffer from a couple of technical issues at first but as the show goes on they just get better and better. They sound a little bit like the Jonas Brothers, and frontman Brian Logan Dales looks like he could be a prom king, but these are not insults – every single girl in the room (of which there are many) goes absolutely wild for them. They have a ridiculous amount of catchy songs – ‘Must Be The Music’, ‘Punch Drunk Love’, ‘When We Were Young’, ‘Someone Like You’ etc – and they end on ‘The Boys You Do (Get Back At You)’ which really makes the girl scream. It’s safe to say The Summer Set will be welcomed back to Cardiff with open arms.
And last but not least, Mayday Parade, who open with ‘Oh Well, Oh Well’ to mass singalongs. They’ve played Cardiff a couple of times before, and they’ve been fairly average, but this time they’re on a whole other level. They sound flawless and their set is absolutely spot on. The songs that go down best come from ‘A Lesson In Romantics’ – there are massive screams for ‘Jersey’ at the beginning of the set. They play a mixture of hits off their three albums, including ‘Kids In Love’ and ‘Anywhere But Here’, and then they launch into a slower section.
Frontman Derek Sanders brings out a keyboard and sings an acoustic version of ‘Miserable At Best’ which begins one of the loudest singalongs the Great Hall has ever seen. The strength of Derek’s voice tonight is unbelievable, and the chorus of voices from the crowd genuinely sounds amazing. After the slower segment of the gig, the full band come back onstage and launch into ‘When I Get Home, You’re So Dead’, which is hands down one of the best parts of the show.
They end the show with anthems ‘Black Cat’ and ‘Jamie All Over’ and the crowd go absolutely crazy. Tonight Mayday Parade have finally proven that they can sound just as good live as they do on record, and it’s an unbelievable triumph. Let’s hope they come back soon.
LAIS MW