4 July 2011 – On that day the sky over Warsaw was cloaked by ominous clouds. Light rain has repeatedly fueled the fear of coping with downpour. Nonetheless, we stood ready and willingly to endure anything, simply to avoid leaving the queue leading to the entrance of amphitheater of gen. Józef Sowiński Park. We – the polish fans of Paramore.
Hour by hour, queue was growing longer. Whilst on 14 we were convinced that our position is pretty freaking far from the exit, an hour later we reached conclusion it’s not that bad. Nearly everyone was wearing a t-shirt with handmade inscription or drawing, related to Paramore of course. Some wore t-shirts of different bands, some were selling tickets, whereas everyone impatiently awaiting the inauguaration. When we finally started moving towards entrance, cry of joy got mixed with critical response concerning security function. Who exactly was the mastermind behind the idea of letting us in one by one? Fortunately, those guys noticed it’s going way too slow and after inspecting the tickets they simply threw a questions like “Got a water? Or camera?” and that was it. A lot of participants ran quickly towards special Hortex entrance. Turned out that guys with golden tickets had a privilege.
Barrier-area places were taken some while ago. The best we could have pulled off was to stand in the 5-6th row. Wasn’t much problem as even the 10th provided amount of satisfaction, though when the first support band – Heroes Get Remembered – started rocking, the crowd creased over with jostle and pogo storm. The jam has tighten and the performance of HGR only made things worse. Not only experienced they volume issues, but also didn’t make us admirers of the way they sang. They didn’t finish until 30 minutes later. We took advantage of space in front of the scene and left the crowd to conquer the barrier-area.
The second support band – Rotten Bark – certainly was an improvement over the first. Their most acclaimed song “King of the Disco” put as in state Their perfomance didn’t take more than 30 minutes as well.
Right after the band said their goodbyes, the chant has started. “Paramore! Paramore! Paramore!” Assembling decorations, laying out cables and tuning up the instruments were accompanied by cries of joy. Many of us have mistaken one of sound techs with Brandon Chesbro or even Jeremy Davis. Crowd was bursting with excitement. When the red mic has landed on the scene, cheering shaken the whole venue. That wasn’t the right moment yet. We needed to await. Lights out. And then chanting “Paramore! Paramore! Paramore!” prevailed.
I wouldn’t call what happened next ‘enter the dragon’. Band members shown up and kicked off the intro every ardent fan bears in mind and knows by heart, for instance by watching gigs on youtube. In fact there is a tremendous difference between sitting in front of the computer screen and being engaged in picking up steam, witnessing the rise of energy along with euphoria. Another wave of exclamations. Hayley makes her way to the stage. They’re done with the intro to rapidly introduce “Ignorance”.
Tension subsides and fans finest 90 minutes begin. Atmosphere was incredible. Since the first track we were able to hear Justin York’s choir. “Feeling Sorry” included regular interjection of “We’re in Poland”. “That’s What You Get”. And then the break to check out gifts thrown on stage. Meanwhile, Hayley expressed her gratitude for appreciating their body of work despite how long it took them to visit us.
Hayley announced the next track to be a “very fast song”, meaning “For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic”. That’s when she passed judgment on our grandeur singing and asked us to dance. Another polish interjection occured – “battle cry”: “Let’s knock it out of the park, Warsaw!” “Emergency”, “Playing God” and “Decode”, which in significant part was fans duty to sing. That’s how Williams has reflected her regards towards singing audience, repeatedly equaling the band in loudness. “When you’re always taking sides, but you won’t take away my pride” glimpse and smiling Hayley with her thumb up moved us deeply, being one of the most glorious moments of that evening.
Afterwards the time of acoustic tracks has come. “When It Rains” to begin with”, followed by “Where the Lines Overlap” (Taylor was in charge of xylophone and Justing sang almost entire first verse). And of course “Misguided Ghosts”, nicely concluded by fans singing & the tune of acoustic guitars, and then the band has left a stage for a moment or two. To come back soon and check how is dancing with “Crushcrushcrush” tunes working for us. During the following track unusually many cameras and cellphones have swinged in the direction of stage. And it’s not even “The Only Exception” yet. It’s “Monster” and its second live performance ever. We-must-record!
The next track deserves more recognition as “Pressure” we could watch in Warsaw was enriched by a long speech from Hayley. She took a moment to greet the new members of “Paramore’s family” and introduce the whole band, beginning with those less-known and subsequently calling Taylor York “Justin Timberlake of Paramore”. The audience recited their names before Hayley attempted to do so. Who, by the way, was introduced by Taylor, chewing gum to the amusement of the girls.
“Looking up”, track, which apparently was an addition to formed “setlist”. Could fans have acted like a thunderbolt? Or perhaps musicians took our maxim “More! More! Paramore!” to their hearts?
Another break brought us another Hayley’s comment, who expressed her happiness to see fans in self-made t-shirts. Turns out she did the same thing when attending her favorite bands gigs in the past and had not presumed someone would do the same thing because of Paramore. After this confession they performed “The Only Exception” accompanied by crowd of several thousand. They said “good night” and deserted us. But we knew it’s not the end yet.
Because the most frenetic tracks were left for the conclusion: “Brick by Boring Brick” and “Misery Business”. During penultimate track we lifted the cards with inscriptions “PA” and “RA”, eliciting another smile among band members. “Misery Business” cherished another tradition – Hayley asked one of fans to sing the finish lines along with her. The grand finale surprised us by colorful confetti falling upon the audience.
The band stayed with us for a little longer to bow and present us with picks, bottles of water etc, with Jeremy & Taylor feeling glad enough to enter scaffold holding up decorations and amplification. As a matter of fact, the entire gig made us think the band was having excellent time. We truly hope it’s also thanks to us.
During one of her speeches Hayley’s sworn Paramore’s coming back to Poland in less than 6 years. We put our trust in her words and anticipate another one!
– Sponge
(translation: Galadh)
