Sleeping With Sirens share Gossip, Madness and more at the Powerstation
After 2 stalwart support sets from The Faim and Lower than Atlantis, blimey-Charlie, it’s only just turned quarter to 8. Here come Sleeping with Sirens, bounding out of the traps with We like it Loud. It’s clear that the band are sticking to their harder sound pallet that punctures its way through Powerstation in Auckland, NZ. But, apart from a certain number of “these fucked up kids” down in the mosh pit, the Powerstation is decidedly empty.
Despite this, all 3 guitarists, Jack Fowler, Nick Martin and Justin Hills gambol around and across the stage like their lives depended on it. But this leaves lead-singer Kellin Quinn looking strangely confused. He wanders in front of the drums looking dazed. His vocal prancing sadly losing the fight in the mix for most of the gig.
Quinn doesn’t give up through, and the roars of If I’m James Dean, You’re Audrey Hepburn are reaffirmingly primal. As are the more delicate melodies of new album track Hole in my Heart. This is the last gig on the Australasian leg of the tour and in a recent 13th Floor interview, Quinn indicated that the band would bridge the gap between pop and rock on their next album. You hope that the future would see more leanings towards the delicate side of Quinn’s voice, as it is, when not lost, the most distinctive thing about the band.
The rambunctious boys continue to tear through their set, taken mostly from their most recent LP, Gossip, and 2015’s Madness with pockets of back catalogue, like screaming-fan favourite If You Can’t Hang.
The dedicated front row liked it loud and the band obviously knew that, so there was little attempt to ape the poppy sheen of new songs like Legends or Empire to Ashes.
Interesting, and maybe slightly perturbing for the band, it was the balcony where all the passion was; a barely-full mosh pit merely exposed the downright obnoxious amount of punters watching the show through their zoomed-in cameras. Upstairs at the Powerstation however, was where the action’s at. The die-hards knowing all the words, screaming at the announcement that “this next song’s called” and a heap of happy dads, accompanying daughters to first gigs, not really knowing what to do but smiling hard as their sprogs adulated.
Midway through the set, there was – maybe of course there was, in a time-honoured rock-tastic way – an acoustic breakdown of strumming with no subtlety. Recent album title track Gossip lost its “new swing” and The Strays was half-acoustic, half full band, with power-house drummer bringing the crowd’s sternums back to life.
The FM-friendly, decently anthemic Legends finishes the main set, and it really brings the crowd together. I half expected the upstairs crew to come marching down the stairs and pack out the floor, but it wasn’t to be. Rapturously, if politely, they shouted for more and were graced with a 3 song encore, culminating in Kick Me, with Quinn, still shouting to be heard above the guitars, singing to the empty back of the room, “By all means, put me through hell”.
Sleeping With Sirens, The Powerstation April 29 2018
Simon Todd
Kellin Quinn’s interview with The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda can be heard at:
https://13thfloor.co.nz/sleeping-with-sirens-the-13th-floor-interview/
Click on an image to view a photo gallery by Chris Zwaagdyk:
