Photos courtesy of All Time Low’s publicity team
How does a band manage to keep fans interested over 20 years without becoming nostalgia-fueled, stuck playing crowd favorites, or abandoning their roots to attract a wider audience? All Time Low seems to have figured it out. Consisting of Alex Gaskarth (lead vocals, guitar), Jack Barakat (lead guitar, backing vocals), Zack Merrick (bass, backing vocals), and Rian Dawson (drums), the pop punk band recently released their tenth studio album, Everyone’s Talking! It’s a reflective work that stays true to the band’s long curated pop punk sound while also looking forward.
Nestled next to SoFi, the YouTube Theater first welcomes the night’s three openers: The Paradox, The Cab, and my personal favorite, Mayday Parade. I made it just in time to see the end of The Paradox’s set. Their last two songs, “Ms. Lauren” and “Do Me Like That,” about a teacher and a crazy ex-girlfriend, respectively, overlay vibrant guitar melodies. With the advice to practice safe sex, they bid goodnight, and the second opener, The Cab, makes their way on stage. Hailing from Las Vegas and led by vocalist Alexander DeLeon, The Cab hasn’t played in Los Angeles in over a decade. Ear-piercing screams ring out when classics like “Symphony Soldier,” “Bad,” and their biggest hit, “Angel with a Shotgun,” play.
Mayday Parade is celebrating their 20th anniversary, and their music is just as much of a throwback as All Time Low. Pink lights glow as the steady beat of “Under My Sweater” starts. The band riles up the crowd with the pitter-patter of “Black Cat,” and it reaches a boiling point with their last song of the night, “Jaime All Over.”
Flannel-clad concertgoers with gauged ears trying to balance beers begin to fill the shrinking room. Straight from the colorful Everyone’s Talking! album cover art, misshapen blocks of red, blue, green, and yellow are placed around the stage with taller blue and red blocks, one holding a keyboard and the other a drum set. The two screens flanking the stage on either side turn on simultaneously, revealing a sitcom-like video introducing the band. Dressed in red with a white baseball cap over his eyes, Gaskarth sings the opening lyrics to “[cold open]” over an acoustic guitar solo, but before long, he’s accompanied by the rest of the band, dressed in their corresponding colors, and Dan Swank (guitar, vocals, keyboard). Under flashing lights, they dive into two new singles, the reflective “Oh No” and gritty, drum-heavy “SUCKERPUNCH.”
The first throwback of the night is “Weightless,” an electric track about being stuck and wanting to grow up and change. With the screen behind the stage playing glowing graphics, song lyrics, and old clips of past performances, I’m struck with the realization that the song is over fifteen years old. As the band moves from recent hits to deep cuts, never letting the crowd gear up for what’s next, Gaskarth points to a sign in the pit: I have gone to 69 ½ All Time Low shows. To his horror, he realizes the ½ is from the week before, where he unexpectedly had to cancel a show at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Utah. But the girl holding up the sign is beaming and easily accepts his “I’m sorry” quip.
In between demands to “Jump, Jump, Jump!” during the pop-heavy “Dark Side of Your Room” and the raw, head-banging melody of “English Blood,” Gaskarth and Barakat bounce off each other with an easy familiarity, years of tour practice under their belt. The pair land their dad jokes, and Barakat cheekily steals kisses from his bandmates all night long to the amusement of the crowd. “Little Bit” starts hard and fast and slows for only a second before crescending for “They like you better when you’re fucked up having fun / If I burn out, oh well, at least I touched the sun.”
Gaskarth dedicates “Missing You” to everyone who couldn’t come tonight. It’s one of their more heartfelt songs, and banjo strums and faint ukulele echo under the lyrics, “Now don’t lose your fight, kid / It only takes a little push to pull on through.” During the simple vocals and guitar on “Glitter and Crimson,” Gaskarth asks the crowd to let others on their shoulders if they can, daring souls scrambling up as their friends hold them up. Those who remain solidly on the ground (like me) help light up the theater with our phones.
“Butterflies” is the last song on Everyone’s Talking! Among layered guitar riffs, it answers the big question on my mind about growth, transformation, and the new album: “So what’s the point of holding on / When letting go’s the only way you’re changing?”
The band also performs “I Hate This Song,” a song they made with I Prevail featuring hard metal instrumentals halfway through before transferring back to the upbeat tune of “And while you’re out there dancing to someone new / I hope you hear this song, I hope it kills you too.” Then, a driving drumming solo by Dawson opens up to my personal favorite track off the new album, “The Weather.” It recounts the awkward, half-hearted attempts at conversation that only two strangers who used to know and love each other can manage. All Time Low indulges the crowd with “Dear Maria, Count Me In” for the last track of the night. Inflatable Men in red, yellow, blue, and green flail about under blinking lights and loud voices singing along to the song about a stripper.
It’s unrealistic to expect a band to stay the same or put out ten remixes of their most popular song. Growth is necessary and always for the better. Do I find myself playing shuffle on albums Don’t Panic and Nothing Personal more often than not? Yes. But I’ll never not click presave when the band I’ve listened to for more than a decade puts something out. Not because of the nostalgia, but because I’ve grown along with them, and can always find something I like.
You can, too. Listen to Everyone’s Talking! below:
