Anyway, let's get to the important part. We had Soundcheck tickets, which means the following: we received a laminate and a wristband which turned us into VIPs (such important you have no idea), we also got an early entrance to the arena and a few more minutes with the boys.
Once everyone had their assigned seat, 5sos came on stage and played Long Way Home. The performance was followed by a Q&A session which contained a few interesting moments. For example, Calum would study to become a teacher (PE and music) if the band didn't exist, Ashton wants 15 kids (I fully support this wish), and they don't want to continue this insane touring schedule because it makes them "lose touch to real life" according to Calum. Then they played If You Don't Know for us, and that was it. Long story short: Think twice about getting Soundcheck tickets, kids - it might be sold as an "intimate experience" but I still haven't figured out what's so intimate about being in a room with 150 others and the band. Maybe in the big scope it is intimate, maybe not.
After soundcheck, we were guided outside and had to go and find our seats. I'm not the biggest fan of sitting at a concert, but this time it was pretty convenient. No holding your bladder because you actually had to pee pretty bad, no pushing through the crowd and no aching feet from standing so much (my feet did ache a little because I was smart enough to wear high heeled boots, cheers to me).
Don Broco got this party started big times - I only knew their name, but it took them just one song to convince me of their talent. These dudes have energy, catchy tunes and just the right pinch of heaviness to make listening exciting. I recommend y'all to have a listen, it'll be worth it.
Something everyone in the 5sos fandom is very used to is them being late to everything. They were already late to soundcheck so I was slightly surprised when they came on stage on time. I'm not so surprised anymore now that I know that they wanted to see AC/DC play next door - from superstars to fanboys real quick.
For an intro, they split their song Outer Space/Carry On and used Carry On to kick the show off. Luckily, they then played my least favourite songs right afterwards so we got these out of the way pretty quickly (Hey Everybody and Money) and moved on to Voodoo Doll and Don't Stop. These two songs took me right back to last year, however it was interesting to hear how the boys developed vocally. They try different things now to make the songs sound different from the album versions and that's pretty cool.
One of the songs that made me look like the heart-eyes emoji was Waste the Night, one of my favourites ever since the album came out. Luke's voice has this sound that makes me want to burst sometimes because it goes so deep and creates this warm feeling in my stomach, you know? With songs like Waste The Night it's like coming home after a long day and knowing that things will be okay. The next song, however, literally rips me open and all my deepest thoughts and fears and worries spill out, and it seems to have the same effect on Michael. When Jet Black Heart was on, he was the only one on stage at first. I told myself it would be cool because I'm a tough girl who can't be messed up by a damn song. Yeah, that worked until Michael had tears in his eyes and tried to sing. When his voice broke so did I. In this moment he was so vulnerable in front of thousands of people, and that's something I haven't witnessed before. The crowd supported him by singing the words for him, in this moment everyone was so with him and it was just beautiful. I'm damn thankful I got to experience this. To cheer things up again, they played If You Don't Know right afterwards. That was sarcasm, sorry. They fully killed me with this one because I've longed to hear it live ever since I got into their music. They did it, I shed a few tears, all is well. You can find the full setlist [here], to finish this way too long review I quickly want to remark that I missed the interaction with the crowd - it's cool to ask how we're doing once, maybe twice, but asking every 10 minutes is boring and rushing through the set ain't cool. Ashton saved it with his speech on how it's his dream to fill football stadiums like AC/DC did across the street, and with She Looks So Perfect the night was over and the boys ran to catch the last two songs of their fellow Australians.
All in all it was a fantastic night, I had loads of fun and walked through every emotion you can imagine. 5 Seconds of Summer are an incredibly talented band, and I hope I'll be there when they actually fill football stadiums.
