After wowing Australian audiences at Good Things Festival, American band Taking Back Sunday have found time to play some of their own headline shows. It’s a Wednesday night in Sydney as hundreds of elder emos make their way inside the Factory Theatre.
The venue is filled close to capacity with the anticipation feverish as Taking Back Sunday burst onto stage straight away giving us an older singalong anthem in “what’s it feel like to be a ghost?”. Followed up by “a decade under the influence”. Before playing “tidal wave” vocalist Adam Lazzara addressed the shoey chants from the crowd saying we won’t be doing that. Explaining we saw Post Malone the other day and he started his show with shoeys. But Posty does what he wants.
Taking Back Sunday have just recently released their new album 152 which they are clearly proud of. As they sprinkled five songs from it into the set. The first of which “Amphetamine Smiles” saw Adam playing the acoustic guitar. With another new song “the one” displaying guitarist John Nolan’s captivating vocals.
“You’re so last summer” hit us all in the emo nostalgia feels transporting the room back to 2002. A special moment for a guy named Tom in the crowd happened towards the middle of the set. As he held up a sign asking if he could play guitar for “you can’t look back”. The band obliged as he got to play John Nolan’s guitar and actually did a really good job.
“Cute without the E (cut from the team)” had everyone screaming their lungs out as Adam’s microphone swinging skills were in full affect. Closely followed by powerful new track “Lightbringer”.
As the set was nearing the end the band appropriately start to play a cover of “end of the road”. With Adam explaining they won’t be doing an encore. Then thanking us for a wonderful night and saying “it’s our last night in your country and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it. We are a band called Taking Back Sunday and we hope all your dreams come true”.
The last song of the night going to “makedamnsure” leaving the crowd and band on a high. After a solid, energetic seventeen song setlist it’s clear Sydney is still under the influence of Taking Back Sunday.
(photos by Christian Ross)
