The Wonder Years, Beach Slang and Muncie Girls @ Rock City, Nottingham 08/07/2017

When you go see a band, what you don’t really want to see is three different variations on the headline band. It is that kind of booking, that leaves people drinking in local pubs until 8.30pm before heading over to a music venue. A well booked show has variety and intrigue, two attributes that were on display in Nottingham. It would be very easy to accompany The Wonder Year, with talents UK Pop Punk bands, but it just wouldn’t be very fucking interesting. So luckily, instead we get a bill featuring The Dirty Nil, Muncie Girls and Beach Slang supporting Pennsylvania’s finest, The Wonder Years.

The Dirty Nil

The Dirty Nil are probably the furthest from The Wonder Years in terms of musical sound, the set is classic rock ‘n’ roll and they used their set to the growing crowd well, with one fan being pointed out by his friends on numerous occasions. Supporting The Wonder Years will certainly serve to expand The Dirty Nil’s fanbase, and bring in those who might not have naturally discovered Dirty Nil organically.

Muncie Girls

In the darkness of Britain in 2017, there are a few shining lights and people standing up and trying to make a change, and speak-out. Muncie Girls are one group of these people, carrying an album’s worth of political and social material, touching on feminism, the NHS, the social divide and more, Muncie Girls are a voice which is needed, as they say in track ‘Committee’

”.. if you’re never, hear, never hear to say, well, a committee doesn’t listen to an absent voice, nor do they sit and wait,,”

If we don’t have bands that speak on behalf of our generation, who’s going to speak on our behalf. Muncie Girls are infectious Indie Punk, it could be argued that the song writing is the closest we’ll get to Dylan in his prime, only time will tell what will come next for Muncie Girls. We expect big things.

Beach Slang

Not knowing what to expect with Beach Slang, having only heard rumblings of their talent around the festival circuit and until now yet to see them, their energy is instantly infectious. With a little bit of a Jimmy Eat World sound, you’d expect them to be deadly serious but frontman James Alex brings humour to the set, with his box of mints and list of heckles from the tour including that he looks like; “Beetlejuice getting married”, “the guy from School of Rock” and “the lead singer of My Chemical Romance.” The ‘banter’ doesn’t detract from the clear talent, they are a tight musical unit and worthy of their place on the bill. It isn’t hard to see why Beach Slang are quickly making a name for themselves.

THE WONDER YEARS

The Wonder Years are a special band, they boast all the musical parts of the Pop Punk genre put with the addition of Dan Campbell’s lyrical genius. Instead of songs about adolescent drinking and relationships, The Wonder Years bring up issues such as depression and anxiety. Any time The Wonder Years play, it feels like a party, an emotional party, but party nonetheless, Dan Campbell gives everything to his crowd and they happily give him EVERYTHING back. A Wonder Years show stands head and shoulders above the rest, there is something they have that is unlike any other band, the emotion and edge of raw truth that they capture in their songs and their performance is truly one of a kind, and their show captures you and holds you for every second.

“If you come back from a Wonder Years show with your voice, did you even go to a Wonder Years show?”

As Campbell suggests, this is a show and setlist for the fans, taken from suggestions on social media, adding to that party atmosphere. Plain and simple, as Pop Punk goes, The Wonder Years are atop of the pile.

Words

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Live Review - The Wonder Years