Concert Night: 5Sos @ Nikon Theater (September 2nd, 2015)

"WE Won't let you leave until you've had the best night of your Life!"

These were the words of Michael Clifford on the night of September 2nd at the Nikon Theater in Jones Beach, and he, along with his band members, kept their promise. 5 Seconds of Summer was truly a show worth watching. My personal opinion: The Concert was GREAT. The band was ON POINT, the sound was amazing, and the Nikon Theater is just an awesome venue in it's own right. I liked the bands attitude, I could tell they were having fun, and they enjoyed what they did. In fact, 5Sos gave me a "Green Day Vibe" when they were on Stage. They did make me compare them to other bands because I saw a certain resemblance (maybe their influence shines through). The first thing that came to my Mind was "Wow, so this is what it must have felt to be at a Beatles Concert". Why? Well, I almost lost my hearing due to God Knows How many High school girls screaming frantically. When they played American Idiot, I made a kind of funny comparison. It almost seemed like if you grabbed Green Day and One Direction and put them in a blender you would get 5 Seconds of Summer. Their music, sound, lyrics, audience, and vocals just seemed like a combination of the 2. I know they hate comparisons, but it's just that it's hard not to see this once you've realized it. It's not bad, it's just funny how hard can influence shine through original content.

The "Green Day Vibe" is a reference to the band Green Day (obviously) and is when the relationship and interaction of the band and the audience is really strong, but also intimate, blurring that line of separation between the stage and the seats. Green Day is a band that seems that if there is something that they enjoy more than playing music is playing with the audience (in Costa Rica, that "playing with the audience got so literal that Green Day got a 3 people from the audience to play the drums, the bass and the guitar. They finished the song like this). 5 Seconds of Summer definitely gave that vibe. It ranged from the typical sing-a-long routine all the way to bringing a girl on stage, and making her playing guitar. She said she had NEVER played guitar at all and they still let her play, in fact, they encouraged her to play and have fun. The Set list was great, they played great songs and Opened up with "End Up Here" which it is a great song to start with. They played some songs they played were "Good Girls", "She's Kinda Hot", "Out of My Limit", "Rejects", "Amnesia" and 2 covers: "American Idiot" by Green Day and "What I Like About You" by The Romantics (Which, by the way, sounded awesome. I lost my voice in "What I like About You").

However, if I were to nitpick, I would say that on that concert, that was their greatest weakness. I have been to MANY concerts throughout my life, and this one was the one were the audience wasn't as active. I was surprised that the audience jumped, danced, and sang more at the BABYMETAL concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Just a little reminder, BABYMETAL sings in JAPANESE, and not English. I don't know if this was because 5Sos didn't know how to manage an audience or if the audience was too young and disinterested to get more involved. I know this sounds weird, but bare with me. I brought up my "Concert Maturity" because I feel that concerts have a certain "art" that need to be learned. Of course, different types of music have a different way of behaving at a concert (Nobody is going to do a Mosh Pit in an Orchestral concert). The thing is, the audience that attended this concert was either High School Girls or their parents (I was probably the only College Student there, let alone Single Man), so I feel that I could be that the girls were too "young" to really interact and the parents weren't invested enough because they either didn't enjoyed the band as much or didn't know enough about their music.

In the over all, it was a great show and I absolutely recommend to check it out if they are coming to your city or a city nearby. If you like that Punk Rock/Pop sound, I'd say it's worth it and definitely is a fun show to watch and be a part of.