Hot on the heels of their fifth studio album, After Laughter, Paramore play to a packed crowd at the Genting Arena, with only a handful of tickets left in the Gods of the 15,683 capacity venue. Not bad for a Sunday. Not bad for any day.
Paramore are back in Birmingham for one of only five dates on the UK leg of Tour Three, with support from Philadelphia’s mewithoutYou, before heading across the globe for gigs in Australia, New Zealand and South Asia.
And the line up looks strong, replete with Zac Farro (one of the original members who left the band in 2010) and three additional touring musicians making up the Tour Three ensemble. But an even more palpable strength tonight comes from the crowd.
Kicking off, quite literally (as Williams demonstrates her ability to boot you in the face, should she want too) with the first single from their last album – the poignantly penned ‘Hard Times’ – Paramore belt out a set of classic hits from their more rockier albums, alongside a smorgasbord of pop nuggets from After Laughter.
But even whilst delivering their earlier rock fuelled singles such as ‘Ignorance’ and ‘That’s What You Get’, there is a undeniably pop tinge to the Paramore on stage today, something a smattering of the near 16,000 strong crowd might have taken little getting used to. Although some things never change, and by the time one lucky audience member is brought on stage for ‘Misery Business’ the entire arena is joining in and singing along.
Paramore have both a loyal fan base and a chequered history, with the Hayley Williams fronted band changing its line up several times in recent years and steering through some publicly choppy waters. Williams is the one with the record deal, but the arguments over ownership and copyright have spilled off the stage and across the internet since Jeremy Davis first left the band in 2005.
Then there’s their move from rock, to pop rock, to pop, which seems to have been consolidated with Paramore’s latest LP. But the fevour of their fanbase has clearly mitigated any on stage issues or revolving door quabbles, as the energy that fills the Genting Arena tonight stands testament to the songwriting and success Paramore are responsible for.
Plus Hayley Williams is a ferocious front woman, exuding inexhaustible energy as she flits across the stage and talks, with some candour, to the Birmingham crowd. Not least about the “safe little place” she finds on stage.
And it can’t be easy to be in her shoes sometimes (especially whilst head high kicking themselves across a Sunday stage) but Paramore seem as confident as ever tonight – in both their new direction and in the army of fans that will seemingly follow them wherever they lead. Or to the Midlands, at least.
On Sunday 14th January, Paramore come to the Genting Arena in Birmingham – performing one of only five dates on their UK tour, with support from Philadelphia’s mewithoutYou.
Doors for the Genting Arena open at 6pm, with mewithoutYou on stage at 7:30pm and Paramore kicking off their headline set at 8:45pm. Standard tickets are priced between £34.24 – £48.93 (inc fees) depending on positioning within the arena.
Amplify Hospitality tickets are also available for £135 (inc fees) which offer a variety of perks – including VIP check in, access to the private lounge, alongside complimentary drinks and dinner. As promoted by SJM Concerts, for full gig details on Paramore at the Genting Arena and links to all available tickets, click here.
*At the time of writing no more standing tickets were available. Extra arena tickets have been released by the promoters, but this gig is looking like a sell out so you might want to move a little quicker than usual.*
Paramore have been on the road with their new album, After Laughter, since summer last year – playing six UK and Ireland dates in 2017, including one night at the Royal Albert Hall (…just, imagine, that one). The Tennessee now trio then embarked on an extensive Tour Two of North America and Canada, from September to October, before confirming their Tour Three return to Europe with gigs in Spain, France and the UK from 7th to 20th Jan. To stay up to date with all Paramore tour details, direct from the band, click here.
Released in May 2017, via the Warner subsidiary – Fueled by Ramen, After Laughter is the fifth studio album from Paramore. After Laughter also sees the return of Zac Farro, one of the band’s original members, who announced in Feb 2017 that he was back with Paramore to record and tour their new album.
Once again produced by Justin Meldal-Johnsen and Taylor York (who worked together on the band’s previous and eponymous album)After Laughter has received widespread acclaim from fans and the music press alike, with Rolling Stone surmising it as ‘a gorgeously produced, hook-studded record with cocked-eyebrow trepidation adding a jittery edge.’ Indeed, it is the bittersweet lyrics from Hayley Williams that seem to be gathering the most attention from After Laughter, with some uncomfortable scars seemingly part of the creative force behind the band’s latest LP. And after a quick Google search through some bizarrely bitter statements and retrospective foot stamping, you can understand why.
But for the fans it’s business as usual, with renewed fervor at Zac Farro’s return and a sell out show zeal supporting Paramore’s latest road trip. After Laughter’s lead single, ‘Hard Times’, reached No6 on the Billboard Hot Rock Charts across the pond and was officially certified ‘Silver’ by British Recorded Music Industry (that’s selling over 200k copies, to you and me).
Subsequent singles ‘Told You So’ and ‘Fake Happy’ both beat a Billboard Hot Rock Top 40, whilst the album itself climbed even higher – reaching No1 on the same US chart and No4 on the UK’s Official Album Chart.
So it seems you can’t keep a good thing down after all, no matter how publicly some corners of the world might try to – ‘and I bet everybody here is just as insincere’. Well, quite.
It’s a Tuesday night, and a small crowd packs into the upstairs room of The Rose Villa Tavern in the Jewellery Quarter. A mismatched array of chairs fills most of the space, as well as a projector that hangs from the ceiling… and I am confused.
Director and animator Louis Hudson, alongside writer and producer Ian Ravenscroft, stand before the crowd and explain that they will be showing a mix of their own collaborations, along with shorts that have inspired and influenced their work. The duo make up Dice Productions – a company that boasts an extensive and award-winning body of work, with their comedy shorts and animations appearing on Nickelodeon (DuckManBoy), Channel 4 (Gregory is a Dancer) and the BBC.
The premise is simple enough and this is not what causes my confusion, but rather the eclectic content. The evening opens with Dice Production’s catalyst, Message in a Bottle (2009) – a one minute animated short based on a drawing that Hudson created when he was around sixteen. This, along with the next couple of shorts, did nothing to aid my journey of understanding. The confusion grew to bewilderment, as my brain struggled to catch up and make sense of what I was (admittedly, excitedly) watching.
I carried this dilemma with me until the fifth piece, entitled All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat), a nine-minute short, unsurprisingly about a little man named Yorkie (voiced by Kevin Eldon) navigating life stuck in the body of a household cat. At this point, I realised that I had to shove any preconceived notions aside. Usually when watching something I need time to process my thoughts, to establish an explanation before moving on. However, the format of the evening – showing shorts one after another in quick succession – just does not permit this. So, after battling with myself I surrender to the ‘just-go-with-it’ mentality, which is the point and made for an extremely entertaining evening.
Although all of the shorts’ comedy is uncontainable and indescribable, the first section is darker and more twisted, including Who I Am And What I Want (2005 – directed by Chris Shepherd and David Shirgley) and Myszochujek (2014 – directed by Kristof Babaski). Part two features assorted clips, starring Morecambe and Wise, Reeves and Mortimer and the cast of The Fast Show – creators who took a medium and distorted it to work against its predetermined rules. This is reflected in The Christmas Card (1968 – directed by Terry Gilliam), which played with the repetition of TV and its traditional conventions long before they were established, allowing a comedy format to be created; a short ahead of its time.
Rejected(2000 – directed by Don Hertzfeldt), is also in this section and demonstrates the deeper, more emotional side of comedic shorts. Rejected is a fictional frame story, where Hertzfeldt is commissioned to animate different commercial and television network segments, all of which are ultimately met with rejection. His characters run amuck, and when the intertitle states that the animator has suffered a mental breakdown his work begins to fall in on itself whilst he kills his characters. This could be described as black comedy at a glance, but once you explore the serious implications it demonstrates how much effort, time and dedication go into these works.
The final section of the evening focuses on a more child-friendly narrative, comprising of clips from children’s shows such as Danger Mouse (1982), Brillso Brothers (2008) and Hudson and Ravenscroft’s own work, DuckManBoy (2015). Despite the child-like qualities of these works, they still contain absurdities. I have seen a handful of these clips before, but never thought to analyse or breakdown their comedic properties. This is echoed by Ravenscroft, who states that we often don’t think about how much work goes into shorts and may dismiss them as “throwaway comedy”.
A great example of this is the side-splittingly funny Morecambe and Wise: The Breakfast Sketch. Hudson points out that someone will have taken the upmost time and care creating bizarre props, including a bespoke fridge that mimics the lights in a cabaret, all for a short clip.
This is reflected in their own work, Croissant (2015), which Hudson explains took around five months to make, to ensure that everything was in place to land the desired comedic effect. And the short is only two minutes long. He explains this could have been done easily over a weekend using animation, but stresses the importance of picking the correct format to convey comedy – hence the choice of a ‘live’ short, despite the laborious hours. This particular discussion is nothing short of inspiring in itself, really opening my eyes to each clip and making me appreciate how much effort goes into each frame.
My personal highlight of the evening is the segment about English comedian Rik Mayall, who is one of the first comedians I was introduced to growing up. In part two, they show a clip from Bottom (1992) and this preludes Dice’s own work Don’t Fear Death (2013) also starring Mayall as the main voice over, with Ed Bye (director of Red Dwarf 1988-91, 1997-99) as Associate Producer. The duo agree they felt they had successfully captured all sides of Mayall in the three-minute short, released three months before his death. Hearing Hudson and Ravenscroft talk so candidly about the actor, his mannerisms and genuine character, is uplifting and makes the short so much more enjoyable.
As well as feeling inspired, I come away from Dots & Loops #5 feeling educated by Louis Hudson and Ian Ravenscroft’s reflective, personal knowledge of the clips and the comedy world in general. For example, the Dice Production duo’s discussion of how repetition in comedy affects its audience is perfectly demonstrated through the four-minute Lesley the Pony Has an A+ Day! (2014). And their thoughts on the changing landscape of comedy shorts is fascinating; Ravenscroft explains that the third clip shown, A Heap of Trouble (2001 – directed by Steven Sullivan), was commissioned and aired on Channel 4 but suggested that today it wouldn’t fit a late-night slot, although may achieve millions of hits online. They discuss the changes in YouTube algorithms which make it harder to find new and inspiring content, raising interesting questions regarding the changes in formats and mediums in which comedy shorts operate and are distributed.
So, in an attempt to summarise the immensely enjoyable and eye-opening event… I was expecting to passively observe the shorts shown, as I felt I wouldn’t be able to appreciate them individually in such a short time. However, once I had wrapped my head around the unrelated narratives, it was an interesting event to be part of for many reasons – I learnt something new, was exposed to new content, and felt the importance of creativity reaffirmed.
Dots & Loops’ fifth edition also demonstrated that whilst there are absurdities and idiosyncrasies, no work is completely original; you will be able to relate it to something prior or see where the artist’s influence has come from. It also showed how genres develop and modify over time, adjusting to modern factors.
Shows like Bottom may look dated these days, but you can still break down work to see what it is that makes it entertaining. It’s then up to artists to take and develop this into something new and exciting that works within their own ideologies. And that’s exactly what Dice Productions does.
All Consuming Love (Man In A Cat) – Dice Productions
For more from Flatpack, including full event listings and project information, visit www.flatpackfestival.org.uk
Held at The Rose Villa Tavern, doors for Dots & Loops #5 will open at 7:30pm with entry priced at £4. Please note this event was previously scheduled for The Outback in Wolverhampton on 2nd Nov – for direct event info, including links to the new venue, click here.
As cited on the Flatpack website, Hudson and Ravenscroft have ‘worked together on a number of short films’; and will be presenting ‘some of their favourite collaborations as well as a bunch of comedy shorts that have influenced them and their work throughout their careers.’
Dots & Loops #5 will be held at The Rose Villa Tavern on Tuesday 19th December – as presented by Flatpack: Assemble. For direct event info, click here.
For more from Flatpack, including full event listings and project information, visit www.flatpackfestival.org.uk