Academy Is... Aren't Worth Wait

Putting five poppy emo bands on one bills makes for one long-ass night. But the kids had to get to bed and the club goers needed the venue, so doors were early and The Guverment was already packed when I made it inside.

Straight up I was hit by a barrage of awful auto-tune pop from The Secret Handshake. Fortunately, it was their last song and Set Your Goals were up next.

The sound was a disaster the last time I saw the latter band, so I was interested to hear what they really sounded like. There were a few heavier tracks worthy of the mini-mosh pit made near the back of the crowd created by the few guys that had been dragged there by their girlfriends. Set Your Goals have gotten significantly harder, but were still very poppy.

They'd be significantly better if they did two things. First, enunciate better. I couldn't understand a thing they said. They even mumbled between songs. And two, please stop writing songs with notes far higher than you can hit. It's not fun for anyone.

Mayday Parade were up next and got to show us what MySpace can do for a band. They just released their second album, but by the screaming in the club, you would have thought Bono had just walked on stage. These kids loved them and the band knew it and played the role of rock stars perfectly.

At times it felt like they'd studied every Guns N' Roses music video to get their stage presence down. Whether it was the tight white jeans, leather vests with no shirts underneath or posed guitar solos, they were a near parody of the whole rock genre. Except they were serious about it. The kids don't know any better, though, so they ate it up and recorded every single second on their iPhones.

Despite their cache with the kids all of their songs generally sound the same, so I have little faith Mayday Parade will ever be true headliners.

Finally, very late, The Academy Is... arrived. The band started off with the title track from their debut album Almost Here, beginning a theme for the night. They stuck almost exclusively to their debut during their short set. The band are in between albums right now, with their fourth in the works, but that doesn't explain why they took us back to 2005.

Something seemed off about Academy as they strut casually into "Neighbours." As per usual, singer William Beckett stole the attention the rest of the band with his marching and microphone throwing, but you could see their hearts just weren't into it. The kids were, though, and they screamed, but even then there were a few awkward silences between songs.

They also played "Checkmarks," "Classifieds," and "Attention" from their first album. They all riled the audience, but there were so many good songs off of their other albums that they completely ignored.

It finally felt like they were hitting their stride when they played a new track, "Sputter," off of their recently released EP and an unreleased song, "40 Steps." Then suddenly they announced that it was their last song.

For "Slow Down" Beckett risked his life to jump down and let the hordes of young girls touch him while he sang. And that was that. They went on late and left early and the lights came on telling us to get out.

They never even peaked. It was just over. And while The Academy Is... are a good reminder that emo, pop rock bands don't need Auto-Tune to sound good, tonight they weren't worth sitting through what came before them.