“WE ARE PARAMORE!” Hayley Williams yelled at last night’s Honda Civic Tour stop at the Dodge Theatre. Like any of the audience needed a reminder.
The Honda Civic Tour, featuring Paramore, Tegan and Sara, New Found Glory and Kadawatha is soon coming to an end after a summer of crisscrossing the nation, but the mood was hardly tiresome in the nearly packed house.
Filling up the lobby of the Dodge were hundreds of people getting ‘Paramore’ stenciled on parts of their bodies or buying merch that came with a special red Paramore bag or a free download of Sainthood, Tegan and Sara’s most recent album.
Inside the venue was a nearly sold-out crowd anxiously waiting for the night’s biggest stars. Girls and women, tweens to middle age, filled the seats along with parents and boyfriends dragged to the show, children and some hip old people.
There was a screen covering the stage wall showing the “Honda Civic Tour: Paramore TV” with videos of the band along with music videos by Death Cab for Cutie, Led Zeppelin and TI. In an interactive twist, the crowd could text whatever they wanted onto the screen for everyone to read what was on their mind about the show.
At around 8 p.m., Tegan and Sara stepped on the stage to Animal Collective’s “My Girls.” With guitars armed and ready to play, Tegan and Sara played a 14-song set list, including “Walking with a Ghost,” “Back in Your Head,” and “Nineteen.”
Before playing “On Directing,” Tegan exclaimed that someday the song will be on the show So You Think You Can Dance.
“There’s something you for sure won’t be seeing on there: These two fools,” Tegan said as she pointed to her sister and herself.
The 10-year road veterans put on a show Phoenix has been waiting for too long. They were dancing what they call “the Canadian shuffle,” which consists of moving side to side (looking a little awkward), and having fun on stage, as well as joking with the crowd.
Tegan announced that the two sisters will be turning 30 in three days, but Sara looks as if she’s 12. Sara replied saying it’s all because of her Justin Bieber haircut.
“We going to get so rich with Justin Bieber in this band,” Tegan said. The two definitely showed that age is just a number.
Once the lights came up after Tegan and Sara, everyone was on edge, anticipating when Paramore would appear on stage. Twenty-five painful minutes later, a drape fell on the stage and screams began. If you were there, you would have felt that you were about to witness a Justin Bieber concert.
The band was slowly revealed and the crowd went even crazier when they jumped right into “Ignorance.” Williams was a ball of fire with her fire engine red hair, orange microphone and yellow shirt. She ran all over the stage, dancing, head banging and getting everyone in their seats to stand up.
Paramore was fun, energetic and explosive, and songs were sung by the crowd nearly louder than Williams. During the fourth song, Williams stopped singing and went to the edge of the stage, moving her finger side-to-side, anger in her face. Once the band was done playing, she explained to the crowd that there were people fighting in the pit.
“You’re at a Paramore show, not a Terror show,” Williams announced. “You look stupid fighting here.”
She proceeded to tell security to kick them out. Once the trash was taken out, the show went on.
They played a 16-song set list, including a cover of Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take my Man” and an acoustic set with “Where the Lines Overlap” and “Misguided Ghosts.”
They exited the stage with the slow hit, “The Only Exception” and left the crowd begging for more. After a couple minutes, the band came back to play two last songs.
During their last song, “Misery Business,” Williams invited three kids on stage from the pit to sing and dance with her. She showed it doesn’t matter how big you are, you can still make someone’s night with a small gestures.
