Friday January 27, 2012

Review and photography by Frances Roach

Support from: Me.

I was surprised to see Panic! At The Disco play to a sold out Apollo, considering their last two trips to Manchester saw them playing a much smaller Academy 1, during their peak. Over the past two years, they have brought back the ! in their name and seen two of their founding members quit, leaving them as a two-piece and taking additional touring members onto the road. However, their live shows haven’t suffered. In fact, the production seen on this bigger stage was quite impressive.

 Playing a rather long set list with well balanced mixture of songs from their three album back catalogue, the 3,500 people present were getting their money’s worth. There was the added bonus of an interesting cover of MJ’s ‘Billie Jean’, followed by a surprising rendition of The Darkness’ ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’. Weird, but extremely hard not to enjoy.  The loudest reaction, predictably, was from songs off their debut album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, and their biggest hit ‘I Write Sins, Not Tragedies’, where uproar was at its peak.  

The crowd, surprisingly, was quite varied in terms of age, with a good amount of adults dotted around; who didn’t look like they were there to chaperone any kids, but were there purely for the music. This is definitely a change to the crowd I witnessed at their Manchester show back in 2008, where the majority was barely legal. The past few years have seen Panic! At The Disco deviate from a stereotyped “emo” band and appreciated for their musicality. Many had doubts that they would be able to continue success as a core two-piece, however based on this satisfyingly lengthy performance and the admiration from the crowd, it looks like Panic! will be back around soon enough.

4/5