LA Hits Donnington
Most famous for their 2002 hit single, ‘Crawling in the Dark’, Hoobastank hail from Los Angeles, California and for once the weather in the Midlands is certainly on a par – perhaps why the second stage is full of people escaping the searing heat.
Once started, Hoobastank manage to put out one of the best sets that I have witnessed in a long time. I am a great believer in the fact that it takes a crowd and a band to make a set – it’s as if one feeds off of the other and so few bands this weekend have seemed to truly appreciate the dynamic like Hoobastank do.
Where as most bands simply say the odd one or two words to the crowd, Hoobastank manage to respond to the crowd in a unique way that is most befitted to seasoned professionals rather than a relatively small band with a couple of singles under their belt.
With a cover of Cindi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ completed, they launch into ‘Crawling in the Dark’ and during a brief musical interlude manage to get every single person in the tent clap as if there were no tomorrow – even those people that were thirty minutes earlier laughing at them as a Linkin-Park clone.
Hoobastank have total crowd control and certainly know where they’re going.