Friends Forever
Tonight Thursday lead singer Geoff Rickly treats the black cladded crowd at the Brighton Centre to a little history lesson, one that will immediately adore his band to the hearts of the crowd. It would seem that eight years ago Thursday had two fans at their shows, a certain Mikey and Gerard Way who would go on to form tonight's main act, My Chemical Romance. Such a statement is enough to incite a wave of cheers and approval for the band that have been going for an amazing ten years and whilst they are now supporting the very band that was besotted with them all those years ago, a band that they themselves took out on tour with them in the early days, Thursday are anything but bitter and resentful. Instead this is a band supporting their friends in every sense of the word and doing so with the professionalism and skill of a group at the top of their game.
As soon as Thursday kick off their set it is clear to all that the New Jersey godfathers of post-hardcore are a polished act, able to whip the crowd into a frenzy with a click of their fingers and masters of every stage trick in the book. This is a group who have played basements, who have travelled the festival circuits and who have survived the Warped Tour and lived to tell the tale, and it shows. Balancing perfectly older hits with those off their latest album, 'A City By The Light Divided', Thursday instantly deliver a lesson in showmanship and good old fashioned rock as Rickly charges frantically across the stage, climbing atop anything he can to look out across the mass of over excited kids. With the melodic riffs of 'The Otherside Of The Crash' sitting snuggly alongside the full effect of Thursday's scream tinged wails of 'At This Velocity', Rickly's stage presences is matched effortlessly by every member of the band, not dropping the ball for a second as all six of the boys from Brunswick commandeer the crowd before the main act take to the stage. Rickly even manages to scare security on two separate occasions, initially causing the burly men to look shocked and terrified as the singer attempted to connect with the audience by joining them on the floor and later leading to full blown heart attacks as he calls for the houselights to come on, for the crowd to split down the middle and face one another before charging across the floor to 'Into The Blinding Light'. White with fear and with their hearts pounding, it was clear to all that the security weren't used to such antics, for the kids though it was simply fun all round and endeared Thursday to their hearts even more.
By now it was obvious that Rickly liked to climb so fittingly aloft on a speaker the wiry black attired frontman announced that this would be their last song, again remarking on their closeness to MCR before raising his arm and swinging his mike above his head like a helicopter rotor, not noticing the nervous looks he was receiving from his band mates as they delved into the opening of 'Jet Black New Year', a song that bulldozed its way onto the stage as confidently as Thursday played their role of support act and having petrified security and thrashed the explosive mass into a flurry, Thursday made way for their old friends, confident in the knowledge that they'd recruited a few more fans to their ranks tonight.