The Offspring / Horrorpops / The Change

Man, it's been a long time since they've had a hit song on the radio.

You see, the last time the stadium rock band The Offspring played here was 3 years ago, in June 2001. The Offspring had just sold a shitload of copies of their last album "conspiracy of one" and i even think it went platinum over here (which isn't really a hard task because the platinum status here is only 80.000 copies). They were first booked to play the biggest arena here in the capital of sweden, the globe, which fits 9.000 people and their parents. Over the course of 5 months, 1100 tickets got sold to that gig, and when it got changed to a smaller venue (2000 capacity) another 700 tickets were sold, so atleast they almost sold that place out, not bad for one of the worlds biggest mordern rock bands, right?

Now enter March 2004, the promoters learned their lesson last time and this time booked the show in the same venue as it took place the last time, The Annex. There was alot of kids with their parents there and I bet a good chunk of them wasn't even born when offspring released the cd which was the first step for them to their rock n roll life, Smash. I like The Offspring, not extremly much, but I know their songs, just like everyone does and while I'm not a fantatic, I'm sure as hell aren't going to miss a rock show when it gets it's ass here.

So, yeah, there was another reason why i went to this show...erh....I mean..concert...yeah... And that reason was THE CHANGE.

Fresh from releasing an album on Fight Fire With Fire this band from the western parts of Sweden rocked the crowd with their hardcore stylings and usual stage bantering about selling out and of course....straight edge. But they were good, it was my third time seeing them opening, the other two being AFI and Give Up The Ghost, but this was the best time I've seen them play and they could really handle a crowd this size, which was something I feared before going to the show seeing as the last two times I've seen them the amount of people was 250 and opening for GUTG like 80. But how the fuck do they sound? Well it's rock/punk/hardcore. They also played a Misfits cover, skipping the CIV cover (fucking CIV!!) of "Do Something" they played the last 2 times. It's not original, not at all, and there sure are bands who do it better, but The Change are a cool band anyways and I didn't think that the crowd was going to get as much into the band as they did. (7)

Next up, The Horrorpops. Yeah, so I've been listening to their CD the last month and it's good, it's fun, it's sexy. So was the show, I mean, how can a band with 2 girls dancing not be totally fucking hot? I mean, full points for that......2 dancers..... But yeah, they played songs too, 9 songs from the album "Hell Yeah" and it was all good....and hot. They didn't play horror beach though, that songs is awesome, but they did have the hottest dancers in the world, so yeah. I really liked the dancers, but you know, they played a flawless set too, and i didn't just think that because I was too busy staring at the dancers, they really were great. (10).

To tell you the truth, I could've walked home by now, the Horrorpops just were so fucking awesome that the night was already great. But of course I waited, I waited for the headlining bunch of arena rockers to come on, except, it wasn't an arena...

So they played "neo-con", the opening track from their latest album and then followed the cd and played "the noose". Then they played all the songs you know you like, "All I Want", "Staring At The Sun", "Walla Walla", "Have You Ever" and so on, but they didn't talk much at all, actually, I don't think they talked at all more than one or two words between songs. Well, they played a lot more songs, actually the setlist was as long as 23 songs and the crowd absolutey loved it, because it's the songs we love, not the band. I didn't really notice at the show but to tell you the truth they were tired and Dexter didn't really sound good at all. But one dude was awesome, the percussionist/backup-singer/mandolin-player/sample-pressing-button-dude jumped around stage and made the band look a lot better on stage, which is always welcome. So, they played more songs, and despite me and 15 other people yelling "....mooottaahh" between each song, they didn't hear it, or, I think they heard, but all the arena playing has made them used to not hearing what people say. So they went off, and came back and played a few more songs, and of course, ending with "Self Esteem". So, I had alot of fun, because it's all about their songs, I mean, there could've been 4 cows on the stage with a big stereo playing the same songs and I would've had as much fun because with the Offspring, they have the songs, and the whooaaas, but they do not have dancers, dancers are hot. So the songs get a (9) and the performance wasn't really a performance at all so I can't really rate it.

But the only thing that matters is that the Horrorpops had dancers, and they were hot.