Combine an old favorite, a couple of MySpace sensations, plenty of spirited, danceable tunes and a sizable amount of screaming kids and teens and you pretty much have the Soundtrack of Your Summer Tour, which brought Boys Like Girls, Good Charlotte and Metro Station to the Grove of Anaheim Friday night.
“We just want you guys to dance with us,” declared Trace Cyrus, one of Metro Station’s lead singers – and it was hard to resist, considering how sugary effervescent the band’s ’80s-ish electro-pop is. Sure, its lyrics are skin-deep, but the songs are also insanely catchy. Synth player Blake Healy is what makes the band so terrific; his orchestrations elevate songs from OK to great. The crowd went nuts for the pulsating “Shake It,” which was even more exciting live.
Sound mixing, however, plagued all three performances; either the guitars and drums would be cranked too high or the mics would get turned down too low. Most of the time, it was virtually impossible to understand what was being sung, though it was worst with Metro Station. Cyrus’ voice is much higher and softer in person than on record, and at times he was drowned out completely by other instruments and co-lead singer Mason Musso.
Without anything new to promote, Good Charlotte’s set was basically a parade of its biggest hits, and for the majority of the now high-school-aged crowd, it made for an entertaining wave of middle-school nostalgia. They heartily sang along to “The Anthem” and “Girls &Boys” – in fact, more than half of GC’s set was derived from 2001’s “The Young and the Hopeless.” The band executed the songs expertly and closed by juxtaposing “I Just Wanna Live” with “Lifestyles of the Rich &Famous.” It was interesting, intended or not, to have the former song about the downsides of living in the spotlight precede the latter snarky hit about whiny, spoiled celebrities.
When I first heard about the concert, I immediately assumed Good Charlotte would be the main headliner, but it was up-and-coming Boys Like Girls that received top billing. Since the release of the band’s eponymous 2007 debut, its mainstream popularity has steadily risen, which was plenty evident Friday night – the audience knew the words to practically every song. BLG’s tunes, crowd-pleasing albeit a little generic, didn’t make it too difficult; the addictive “Dance Hall Drug” was a standout.
Frontman Martin Johnson asked spectators to wave their cell phones and lighters high for “Thunder,” to which they happily obliged. The track is a guilty pleasure, a piece of schmaltz on par with Dashboard Confessional’s “Stolen” or Red Jumpsuit Apparatus’ “Your Guardian Angel.” The group also shook things up by singing a remix of “Learning to Fall” and threw in a few lines of Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love.”
Overall, the entire concert was a nice morsel of summery fun, though it might’ve been nicer if it had been a little shorter. Nearly four hours of energetic pop-rock is a bit much to swallow. Two’s company, three’s a crowd but four, if you include first act the Maine, is really pushing it. “It’s been a while,” said Madden of his band. He could’ve been talking about the concert’s length, and I wouldn’t have agreed more.
Contact the writer: laurenhwilson@gmail.com
