Paramore stormed the stage live on Mother’s Day at Radio 104.5’s sixth birthday show at Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, NJ, right across the river from the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia, Pa. They were the sixth band out of eight bands that played.
Frontwoman, Hayley Willams appeared wearing turquois makeup along her eyes, like an Ancient Native American, and a cutup sleeve band t-shirt of the 70s British Punk band, Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Lead Guitarist, Taylor York and Bassist, Jeremy Davis had some interesting outfits as well with the turquois paint on their pants, as they were running around and getting into it, while the two touring guitarists, Taylor’s brother, Justin York, and Jon Howard were stuck in the back in one spot with new touring drummer, Miles McPherson (from Kelly Clarkson). McPherson recently replaced session studio drummer from Nine Inch Nails and Angels & Airwaves, Ilan Rubin. Rubin played some shows with Paramore, played on their new album, and just last week posted on Twitter that he wasn’t going to be part of the rest of the Paramore tour. He did a great job on the new album, and McPherson did a great job Emulating both Rubin’s, and former drummer, Zach Farro’s drum parts.
Taylor even did some sideline tom percussion on certain Paramore tunes, such as “Now.” On “Let The Flames Begin,” he also did percussion as Hayley was singing the outro only featured on their live CD/DVD package, The Final Riot (2008), in which Hayley sings “Father…. Oh father.”
Paramore played rock solid. They played songs from every album they put out including some hits such as, “Misery Business”, “Now”, new single “Still Into You,” “Brick By Boring Brick,” “Ignorance,” “Decode,” (featured on the Twilight Soundtrack, 2008) as well as the more unpredictable obscure ones, such as; “Looking Up,” “Let The Flames Begin,” “For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic,”, new song “Fast in My Car,” and even “Renegade,” which is featured on the promo demo Singles Club (2011), but not featured on any Paramore studio albums.
Paramore were originally supposed to play seventh, right before Phoenix, but Passion Pit did instead, of the order of the three ‘P’ bands.
Paramore have come a long way from what Hayley told the audience that in 2005 they played a 300 capacity North Philly venue at the The North Star Bar to an arena like The Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, NJ. Hayley also asked the women in the audience, “Who here are mothers?” and the majority that said “Yeah!” she responded, “Alright, Rock ‘n’ Roll mothers!” in honor of Mother’s Day. She has to be the best frontwoman in Rock ‘n’ Roll. Having a ton of energy and a powerful voice in that small body, she has a lot to offer!
The show ended with confetti flying through the air on “Brick By Boring Brick.” Paramore are definitely a pop rock band worth checking out live. We want “more” of Paramore!
– Andrew Hoxter
