11

Chase The Light Tour • Manchester Academy

Jimmy Eat World were set to spend their Wednesday evening playing to a sold out Manchester Academy and neither the crowd nor the band let themselves down. It wasn’t long before the Academy was heaving and everyone seemed to have high expectations for the night ahead.

The support act were Australian four piece Sparkadia who took to the stage with confidence and warmed up the crowd well but it was clear to see that the crowd were only here for Jimmy Eat world.

Jimmy Eat World arrived on Stage to deafening applause and greeted the crowd with “Big Casino” followed by “The Sweetness”, the latter sending the crowd into a frenzy. Throughout the gig it was noticeable that the newer material caused less of a stir than the older songs, but as Jimmy Eat World have such a back catalogue of tracks to choose from, they managed to find a set that seemed to please everyone.

Throughout the first part of the set there seemed to be a lot of movement from the sound crew and it was noticeable that they were having trouble with the bass drum as the microphone kept failing. This didn’t stop the band or the crowd from enjoying themselves until halfway through “Disintegration” when all of the sound cut out causing a massive grown from the crowd. The band tested their microphones and everything was definitely off.

This situation could have been far worse but Jimmy Eat World handled it very well. Jim came to the very front of the stage and told the crowd stories of bad shows where things had gone wrong, and how they had an “Emergency bottle of whiskey” just for these occasions. It was a long five minutes for the crowd until the sound returned to rapturous applause.

After an exchange of grin from band member to band member they kicked back in with “Salt Sweat Sugar” and from here on all thoughts of sound problems were forgotten. They stormed through a brilliant set playing crowd favourites from new and old including “Blister”, “Here It Goes” and “Pain”. They are a great live band who are very diverse and from the dirty and powerful sounds of “Salt, Sweat, Sugar” to the cleaner sounds of new single “Always Be” they manage to keep a connection with the crowd. They put everything into their performance which is exciting to watch, especially Jim who by the end of the set looked like he’d been swimming rather than playing a gig.

“Pain” was Jimmy’s final song until the chants of the crowd brought them back to the stage for an encore. “Your House” and “Hear You Me” were both played partially acoustic and were amazing to watch. “Hear You Me” seemed to stun the crowd into a slow sway and was definitely a highlight of the gig for me.
“Chase The Light” and “The Middle” were the final songs of the night and the crowd thoroughly enjoyed them.

Jimmy Eat World are a band who have been around for a long time and have built up a loyal fan base. Tonight despite sound problems Jimmy Eat World did these fans proud and proved that even they can have difficult gigs.