Fronted by an exuberant Hayley Williams, bringing colour and vitality to the performance, along with Taylor York’s quietness and thoughtfulness giving us guaranteed solid performances and newly returned drummer Zac Farro provides the flavour and spice; Paramore return to Cardiff Motorpoint Arena after the five year wait to put on one of the most enthralling shows of the year! But they wouldn't have succeeded if it wasn’t for touring members Joey Howard, Justin York, Logan MacKenzie and Joey Mullen. The band are made up of layers, each as important as the next, everyone brings something to the table. There have been many incarnations of Paramore but this one has certainly been the most upbeat and brings more depth than the rest. This is Paramore.
Dedicated fans queued since 8AM to reach the dreamt about barricade to witness all the action.
Starting the night, American rockers, mewithoutYou, bringing the outdoor indie fest vibe, feelings of bare feet, rolled up jeans and funky glasses. With tunes such as In A Sweater Poorly Knit to Red Cow, the five song set certainly got the crowd pumped.
Starting earlier than anticipated, Paramore jumped to stage firstly with latest single, taken from new album ‘After Laughter’, Hard Times which got the sea of music lovers dancing with joy, the song gradually goes into Blondie’s Heart of Glass. Moving onto older fan favourites such as Ignorance and That’s What You Get, surely had the crowd going crazy.
Misery Business starts as the crowd breaks out into dance, jumping along to the highly anticipated song. Hayley spoke about the highs and lows of the journey the band and herself has been through before bringing a very excited fan to the stage to finish off the song.
Farro, whilst being away from Paramore, started his own solo project ‘HALFNOISE’. Paramore performed alongside him to cover French Class, again we can hear his indie influences throughout the song. This very upbeat tune had the audience bouncing to the very last second.
With the bands effective stage show and beats, they had the crowd up and moving throughout the whole show. Their performance was absolutely outstanding and I’m sure if they return any time soon, we’ll be there!