The Pure Noise Tour with Bearings, Just Friends, Four Year Strong, Real Friends, and State Champs is pure fun and simply about the fans having a good time. That’s the constant, noise, fun, and crowd surfing. The rest is more nuanced. each band has its own vibes.
Pure Noise was closed by State Champs who threw a party. It was singer Derek DiScanio’s birthday weekend and boy did he, guitarist Tyler Szalkowski and the band play like they were celebrating. Air cannons, streamers and pop punk. Maybe the whole tour has these elements, as DiScanio remarked, “you can celebrate your birthday for a whole month.” They celebrated the whole set and it was exciting.
Real Friends did what they do and the tunes they play are dreamy. It was a nice lighter moment between Four Year Strong ramming guitars down throats and STATE CHAMPS party vibes. Lighter, but not light. They play heartfelt music and it seemed to hit the heart of the crowd.
Four Year Strong. Man, it just sounds like Worchester, MA is — hard and heavy. Between Alan Day and Dan O’Connor, they trade heavy riffs and heavy vocals — meaningful words. Their anthems are meaningful from the state of Massachusetts to the stage in Colorado. Each and every person coming up and over the crowd toward the state was screaming along until security pulled them down off the front row on the barricade.
Just Friends. Beautiful. The juxtaposition between funk fun on the stage, asking the crowd repeatedly to “jump.” Everyone jumped, everyone jammed — the line between the performance and the fans, while separated by a barricade was blurred by dancing. It seems everyone danced their faces off. Even VIP sitting on the upper level of Summit Music Hall.
Openers Bearing hit a lot of notes that make Pure Noise bands special. They’re heavy at times, heart felt, and a thinking fan’s band. They combined the heart and the head to leave people feeling sentimental. “Sway” hit all the notes, common themes we want from pop punk and they played it well.
The Pure Noise Tour hits hard, then softens the blow with sweet hits. Pure noise, maybe, pure fun — check. Enjoy the tour, it’s a solid five hours of well played music that motivates and creates a community of noise and, maybe, maybe — friends.
