All Time Low 3/11/18 - Show Review
On Wednesday, April 11th, I got the pleasure of seeing All Time Low in concert with openers DREAMERS and Gnash. The concert was in Columbia, South Carolina, at the Music Farm. By the time we arrived at 5:30, thirty minutes prior to doors opening, there was a fairly solid line of people - around 200 in front of us. We got into the venue around 6:15. The stage was on one side with the march table and bar on the other, and they were selling a variety of shirts, but only one tour shirt with all of the Last Young Renegade Tour Part II dates.
DREAMERS was the first opener. I had not heard their music before, but I was pleasantly surprised. Their songs were a mix of pop, rock, and a bit of a country twang. They played songs off of their first album, such as their popular songs DRUGS and Wolves (You Got Me), but also performed a new cover of Zombie by The Cranberries. They had an interesting aesthetic, keeping up the theme of “dreaming” with transitions involving sleep and dreaming in between each of their songs, which made the performance more engaging and interesting.
The next opener, Gnash, I had heard on the radio with his popular singles I Hate U, I Love U (featuring Olivia O’Brien) and Lights Down Low, primarily by Max Schneider, but Gnash is featured. He is mostly a rapper, but also sung some non-rap songs. He engaged a lot with the crowd, asking questions and teaching them parts of his less popular singles to sing along to. My personal favorite part was his cover of “I Miss You”, originally by blink-182, which the crowd definitely also enjoyed, judging by the singing around me. He closed out with his song Broken Hearts Club, for which he recently released a music video!
Finally, All Time Low took the stage. They started out with a fan favorite, Somewhere in Neverland, and the crowd went wild. Jack Barakat, lead guitarist, claimed that Columbia was the loudest crowd so far. The next song that they played, The Irony of Choking on a Lifesaver, was recently added to the setlist, and it was a great choice. All Time Low’s performance of the song was energetic, fun, and engaging. The crowd jumped and screamed along.
Highlights of the show included Missing You, a slow song that the crowd swayed and waved hands to, and Dear Maria, Count Me In, in which Jack Barakat went into the crowd. Before another slow and meaningful song, Therapy, lead singer Alex Gaskarth took the stage alone and gave a sweet speech about how things will get better, leading into an emotional performance with just a guitar and Gaskarth’s vocals.
All Time Low performed a few songs from their newest album, Last Young Renegade, including Last Young Renegade, Drugs & Candy, Dirty Laundry, Dark Side of Your Room, Good Times, Afterglow, and Life of the Party, but there were a good number of songs from old albums, such as Weightless and Damned If I Do Ya from Nothing Personal mixed in. Overall, the setlist was solid, including newer songs and as well as older fan favorites, and of course their most popular songs were performed.
As far as fan engagement goes, All Time Low was very engaging. Both Barakat and Gaskarth would point out fans in the crowd to talk specifically to, Gaskarth would make eye contact with and smile at fans during songs, and at one point, after a fight broke out near the section we were standing in, Gaskarth paused to take a second to ask the fans to calm down and ask everyone in the section if we were all right. They also let fans attempt to crowd surf, though the crowd wasn’t especially great at handling crowdsurfers, so it was more of a ‘floating around in the crowd’.
Overall, if you are a fan of All Time Low, I would encourage going to see them, either on this tour or if they do another similar headlining tour soon! The small atmosphere of this show was fantastic and really felt personal and warm. Their sound live was similar enough to how it sounds on the album to prove their genuine talent. There weren’t a lot of special effects or video transitions, so that could be something that would improve the show, but this could have been harder to pull off in a small venue compared to an arena show .For me, it was a great first real “General Admission” concert, and I would absolutely go again.
** No images used are mine! All Time Low photos courtesy of Ashley Osborn from this album, Gnash photo from his facebook, Dreamers photo by CJ Moy taken from here!












