The All American Rejects - Nottingham Rock City

On Saturday 17^th October 2009 we were lucky enough to interview All American Rejects guitarist Nick Wheeler at Rock City in Nottingham. We were also given passes for the gig by the lovely people at Chuff Media and to take photos. The interview with Nick can be read here: http://www.thejitty.com/articles/nick-wheeler-interview-all-american-rejects

After the interview myself and Hunter headed back to Leicester to collect Mojoses, our photographer for the evening. The interview with Nick was brilliant, I really enjoyed it and he’s thoroughly a nice guy. I was on a high about it for most of the day, and as I had offered to drive us back to Nottingham I realised how much I would probably want to break down and cry if my car decided to give up on us. Needless to say, if recovery was needed I would have asked them to recover me to Nottingham and worry about the car after the gig.

I’ve always been a fan of The All American Rejects, and not only was it the interview with Nick that made me excited about the evening, it was also that I’d been playing their albums throughout the week and I was getting excited at the sound of all those classic AAR songs that I hadn’t listened to for a while and looked forward to hearing them being played live.

We arrive in Nottingham safe and sound, park up, kiss the car for getting us there and head for Rock City.

It doesn’t take long for the place to fill up, and even during the support acts Upwelling and American Steel the place was pretty packed. We found ourselves a nice perch near the front of the stage so that we had perfect view and so that Hunter and Mojoses had room to dash off to take photos when AAR came on stage.

Excitement stirred during Upwelling’s set as Tyson (AAR lead vocals) runs out on stage and joins in on the vocals for about 30 seconds before running back off again. I could see how much excitement there was in Tyson’s presence and neither I nor the rest of the crowed could wait for AAR to come out.

What a treat we were in for too. Tyson came out dressed as a bandit with an aim, to steal our hearts. He has an eye mask on, a cape and his chest was covered in gold glitter. As much as I should have been impressed by this, I was more impressed with his black pointy shoes that had this awesome gold pattern on them.

The opening song was Move Along, which is my favourite track. Hunter and Mojoses head off to take photos, and I stand there and sing along (and hold the camera bags and coats!). I was completely mesmerised throughout the whole set, and don’t think I’ve ever seen a band go through so many plectrums. Nick, Tyson and Mike were lined up with about 5 each on their microphone stands and they were about gone by the end of the first song! There was actually one point where Mike had thrown away his last plectrum without realising halfway through a song and there was about 20 seconds where Mike wasn’t playing whilst he tried to find another one.

This wasn’t the only thing that mesmerised me. Tyson was certainly enjoying the stage, whether it was stood up or lying down on the floor. He captured every member of the audience, and it wasn’t too long before he lost the cape.

As the evening went on, I was really enjoying hearing tracks from the new album, but I was pleased to hear the classic AAR stuff too. I also had one of those moments where you hear a song on the album, but as soon as you hear it live you love it even more. That song for me was Fallin’ Apart.

The set list for the evening was as follows:

Move Along
Fallin’ Apart
Dirty Little Secret
Stab My Back
My Paper Heart
Believe
Swing Swing
I’m Waiting
I Wanna
Mona Lisa
Real World
It Ends Tonight
Damn Girl
The Last Song
The Wind Blows
Gives You Hell

I always thought that live music photography was hard, mainly because of the lighting, but I think the hardest thing about taking photos at the gig was actually trying to capture the band themselves. They were excited and energetic, but Hunter and Mojoses with their brilliant photography skills managed to get some great shots, and Tyson was even playing up to the cameras at some points.

The band left the stage after playing The Last Song, but as with any encore I knew they were coming back. Mainly because they hadn’t played Gives You Hell and it was the one song that I was most looking forward too.

So the band come back and play The Wind Blows, which I was happy about because it’s my favourite song from the new album, followed by Gives You Hell. It didn’t take long for the lights to be turned up, so we battle our way through the crowd and head for the car (now preying it will get us home).

I had a brilliant day interviewing Nick and a brilliant evening at the gig. It was the first time I’d ever seen them play live, and the next time they return to the UK I’ll certainly get a ticket!