Every once in a while, a “perfect” tour comes around. What I mean by perfect is a tour that is specific to one genre and all of the bands get along well. The Glamour Kills tour of 2012 is one of those. The lineup to get into the venue was quite ridiculous, and even though I was there an hour before the doors opened, I missed half of the first set. The opening band, or person in this case, was Into It. Over It. In the 15 minutes of the set that I caught, half of it was spent listening to Evan talk. However, the few songs that he did play were really good. The second band to play was The Story So Far. I was incredibly excited to see them because they’ve been one of my favourite bands for the last six months, and they did not disappoint tonight. Neither did the crowd. Within the first ten seconds of The Story So Far’s opening song, Swords and Pens, there had already been at least ten stage dives. Some other notable songs that they played were Quicksand, a cover of Enter Sandman by Metallica (just the first minute), Mt. Diablo, and High Regard. All three/four of those songs really made the whole crowd go nuts and they were all played so well. They sounded even better live than they do on record! Next up was Transit. I was incredibly excited to see this band too for a similar reason as The Story So Far. Recently, I fell in love with Transit’s older albums, but I couldn’t get into Listen & Forgive as much as the others. I enjoy it, but I prefer the older, more up-tempo Transit. Tonight, they played eight or nine songs and all but two were off their newest album. I was kind of disappointed that they didn’t play many older songs, but I was satisfied with their set-list and the majority of the crowd seemed pleased as well. After Transit, Polar Bear Club played some music for the fans. Their set started off on the right foot. They really got the crowd moving with their opening song, Pawner, and continued to keep the crowd moving with their next song Killin’ It (my personal favourite of their set). However, after those two songs, they started to lose some of the crowd’s participation. Last, but not least, the headlining band, The Wonder Years. Throughout their set, the crowd was singing almost every single word (yours truly was also singing his heart out). Thankfully, for the most part, you could still hear the band’s vocals perfectly. The band and crowd were so energetic and there were plenty of stage dives. Some of the highlights of The Wonder Years’ set were Local Man Ruins Everything, Came Out Swinging, Washington Square Park, and the encore song, Living Room Song. Local Man Ruins Everything was the first song of their set and as soon as they started playing, I knew I was in for a treat. I had seen The Wonder Years once before, but that was during last year’s Warped Tour and their set was limited to six or seven songs. A few songs later, they played Came Out Swinging and for a good chunk of that song, the crowd was overpowering Soupy’s vocals. Near the end of their set, they played Washington Square Park. Surprisingly, that is one of my least favourite songs by them. When the entire crowd screamed the lyrics “I’m looking for the upsides”, it left Soupy temporarily in awe. My personal favourite song was their first encore song, Living Room Song. Even though I had seen videos of them playing it on previous dates of the Glamour Kills tour, it was quite unexpected. This was one of those nights in which there were so many good performances that everything just started to blur and even the poorly played songs sounded great. I was so happy that I had tears in my eyes during one of The Story So Far’s songs and three or four songs by The Wonder Years. March 14th, 2012: A night to remember for people that attended the Glamour Kills tour in Toronto.
Links: Into It. Over It. – The Story So Far – Transit – Polar Bear Club – The Wonder Years
