Photo by Caitlyn Willard
No one ever expects a Tuesday night to be anything more than JUST a Tuesday night. Things change, however, when one of your favorite bands decide to play a venue near you. And then of course, your Tuesday night gets a million times better.
This was one of the first shows in quite some time where I actually got to the venue early enough to catch every single opener – and I was so glad that I did. Walking into Starland Ballroom, there was already a huge crowd formed when openers, The New Royalty, took the stage. We actually interviewed these guys about two years ago (which you can see here). The New Royalty aren’t new to performing in front of large audiences since they’ve performed at Bamboozle and opened for Big Time Rush at Six Flags back in 2011, but this was quite different. Most New Jersey bands dream of performing at Starland Ballroom, a venue that hosted shows for Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, Blink 182, and Twisted Sister (this May)! For a band that has been slowly making big strides, the crowd was completely into The New Royalty’s set and their excitement radiated throughout the room.
Following The New Royalty was Crash the Party – a band I had heard of before, but never really listened to. Though you could hear some off-pitch notes here and there, there was so much energy from the band that just made the audience want to hear more. And that’s exactly what they got. Mid-set, Crash the Party announced that their EP released the same day as Frozen…so of course, they covered “Let It Go”….and it was pretty amazing. Makes me really wish that Fearless (or any other label, for that matter) would put together some sort of “Punk Goes Disney” CD. Come on, how awesome would that be?! Regardless, the band put together an awesome set and in conjunction with The New Royalty, the crowd was even rowdier than before!
The last opener was one that I’ve been familiar with for years. I first saw This Century back in 2011 and I honestly have not really listened to them since, but the second they hit the stage and started their set, I immediately regretted it. These guys have grown so much as a band and it was amazing to see how much energy they put into their set. You could really see how much they loved performing in front of a room full of people and just making everyone dance, sing, and have a freakin awesome time! If you haven’t seen or listened to these guys before, please do yourself a favor and check them out because I only expect even bigger and better things to come from them.
Finally, after nearly 2 hours from first walking into the venue, it was time for We The Kings. The room immediately burst into screams and cheers as each member appeared on stage and started off with “Queen of Hearts”, which the band was recording the music video for throughout the tour. Each night, one of the members of We The Kings (or one of the crew-members) would be wearing Google Glass to film the crowd and the bands performance. This was my third time seeing the band perform and this ultimately topped any other performance they’ve given. The band played a mix of songs from their new album, Somewhere Somehow, and even included some old favorites from their first/self-titled album, We The Kings. One of the highlights from the night would be when the band performed “I Feel Alive.” This is probably my favorite song from their latest album, so I was pretty excited when they started to play it. The best part – lead singer, Travis Clark, told the audience prior to performing the song that they would need to know 2 different dance moves: the Sorority Squat and another which including flailing your arms around as if you were going crazy. What I didn’t expect was for the entire audience to actually follow along with both dance moves during the song, but they did and it was one of the most hilarious things I had ever seen.
We the Kings put together an amazing set and ended the night with “Check Yes Juliet,” a definite crowd favorite. During one point of this song, the band had stopped performing and the entire audience was SCREAMING. And I don’t mean that they were screaming for a couple seconds because of how much they loved the song. What I mean is that the entire band literally stopped playing every instrument as the entire crowd screamed for a good minute or two. It was fucking loud. Now, I’m only 21, but I was definitely one of oldest people in the crowd and somehow managed to stand next to all the parents who had taken their kids to the show, and looking at them you could see every parent covering their ears because of how insanely loud it got. And even though it gave me the worst headache afterwards, it made me love the night that much more. The amount of excitement, passion and energy that was in Starland Ballroom that night was incredible and was something you wouldn’t understand unless you were in the room yourself.
The band recently wrapped up their tour, but you can catch We The Kings on Warped Tour this entire summer. Trust me when I say that you’ll definitely want to check them out.
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