Concert review: Four Year Strong with Holly Would Surrender and Newdrive by Alex Bock

Munich, Strom, May 4^th, 2016

When I got to the venue at about 15 minutes before doors there were about 15 people waiting outside. Luckily this changed fast, when people came pouring in. The Strom is only a small club, but it was packed tightly that night.

Four Year Strong played an incredibly powerful set from the first to the last note. The audience went nuts from the get go. The started out with ‘We All Float Down Here’ and everyone was moving along. After the third song a woman in the front row started yelling at the band and everyone in general. She then crawled onto the stage and sat there for a while, fumbling around with her phone. Everyone was so surprised I guess, they let her be on stage for a whole song, where she (more or less) danced on stage and tried to yell again into every microphone. She was then led off stage, where she still yelled around, but then left entirely. After that minor incident, which was really handled well by everyone, the show went on without any further interruption. There was no time to catch your breath, it was a constant party with crowd surfers, circle pits and moshing fans in general. For the last song of the night ‘Wasting Time’ parts of the audience entered the stage, to sing and dance along. What a way to end an awesome show!

What also stood out was that both support acts watched the whole FYS set side stage, obviously enjoying every second of it and helping the band out, when the monitors were kicked aside by people getting on stage or setting microphones back on its place. Very remarkable. It’s not rare that the other bands are side stage, all of them and the whole show is pretty rare though.

Opening acts were two pop punk bands. The first one called Holly Would Surrender, second on the bill were Newdrive from Sweden. Holly Would Surrender already released their second record called ‘Kaleidoskop’ in 2016, some people even sang along to the songs, so they were not completely unknown to the audience. Newdrive just released their debut record ‘Closed Doors And Broken Mirrors’. They were also received well by the audience. My tip…check both bands out. If you like bands like Sum 41, Green Day and FYS, you’ll like both bands too.

Holly Would Surrender: