Concert Review of Set It Off, last night's show in Munich, Germany at Backstage Club

Concert Review

Brawlers / Decade / Set It Off

Munich, Backstage Club, May 19^th, 2015

Faster than I can write this review, the news are out on Facebook, that Set It Off has parted ways with their bass player Austin Kerr. Here’s the statement of the band concerning the departure:

Recently we have been made aware of the statements made about our bassist, Austin Kerr. We are taking the situation seriously and have decided that the best thing for the band is to part ways with Austin. We send our deepest apologies to anyone who has ever been affected negatively by his actions. Our fans mean the absolute world to us and their safety and happiness will always be our top priority. We are so grateful for their ongoing support over the years and will do everything we can to make this up to them and to move forward from this.

There’s still some European tour dates to play and they will perform all the announced sets as they also stated on their facebook page.

But back to the show yesterday.

There were two opening acts from the UK. First off there was a band called Brawlers. They are a four piece from Leeds, UK playing punk music. They released an EP so far and recently a full album called ‘Romantic Errors Of Our Youth’, which I highly recommend you give a listen. And while you’re at it, check out Decade’s ‘Good Luck’ too. It’s always so much fun to watch bands play that enjoy themselves and love performing for others, which in fact all three bands showed that evening. Especially younger bands bring so much energy on stage. Their sets don’t seem to be so strictly planned through. Sure they have a set list they follow, but it seems like any way what might happen, they’ll perform and don’t be bothered by it. Brawlers started their set off with a Boys II Men a Capella intro (which I think wasn’t really planned), which was perfectly performed by the way. During the set Harry Johns, the singer, joined the crowd in the pit twice and mingled with the people. He told the audience that they’ve met the second opening act of the evening, Decade, a year ago and became good friends with them. Ant (the bass player of Brawlers) and Harry stood side stage most of Decade’s set, jumping and singing along to their songs. Decade are a five piece band from Bath, UK. Both bands were received pretty good by the crowd. It was the first time in Germany for both bands. Considering the responses, Decade were already known to some more people. Both bands though surely made some new fans that evening and were asked by quite a few people to sign stuff and/or take pictures with them.

Brawlers:

Decade:

The mostly really young audience welcomed Set It Off on stage with loud cheers. Right before the show the band did a VIP meeting with some fans, where they played some acoustic songs, signed stuff and took pictures. Cody, their singer, was constantly on the move and interacting with people. He’s one of those musicians that’s amazing in making direct fan contact during the show with getting down on one knee to come closer to the crowd or giving people high-fives and making eye to eye contact. He even ‘walked’ on the hands of the people during one song. Set It Off already released some records/EP’s since 2008, when the band got together. Their set-list contained old and new songs like ‘Ancient History’, ‘Breath In/Breath Out’, ‘Bleak December’ and ‘Tomorrow’. They also did a cover of an Ariana Grande song called ‘Problem’. Dan and Cody talked to the crowd a lot and thanked everyone for coming out. The main part of the show was closed with the song ‘Miss Mysterious’ to which Cody played the keyboards. He and Dan performed ‘Swan Song/Horrible Kids’ acoustic for their first encore. They closed their set with probably their most popular song right now ‘Why Worry’.