The Beat Surrender

Before the gig, my only knowledge of the Plain White T’s was their current top 10 single, ‘Hey There Delilah’, which a cousin of mine had told me about, I didn’t know anything about the band but had heard the song so many times on the radio, it had been stuck in my head for a few days. It’s pretty infections!

So after a bit of myspacing I found out that the group hail from Chicago and have been together for almost a decade, they have undergone a few line up changes but are now on their fourth album. The group now consist of Tom Higgenson (Vocals) Dave Tirio (Guitar), Mike Relondo (Bass, Vocals) De’Mar Hamilton (Drums) and last but not least Tim Lopez (Guitar and Vocals). They have toured the US supporting Fall Out Boy, with Gym Class Heroes and their music has been described as pop-punk.

Well we arrived at the gig and I was initially surprised by how young the people in the crowd were, with the average age being around 17, which made me feel a little bit like a teacher overseeing proceedings at a school disco. That soon changed when the lights went down and the Plain White T’s burst the gig open with ‘Our Time is Now’, an up tempo track, which set the precedent for the rest of the gig.

The Plain White T’s were relentless. They churned out songs back to back, anthem track after anthem track, taken from their latest album, ‘Every Second Counts’, (released 3/9/07), with no let up or talking to the crowd, (‘is everybody having a good night’) break in between. From looking around the group already have a dedicated fanbase over in the UK, every single person I could see knew all the words to nearly every track.

Like I said, the opening song was a good guide to how the rest of the set would pan out. Stand out tracks for me were, ‘Our Time Now’, Figure It Out’, ‘Let Me Take You There’, which was dedicated to anyone in love and ‘Hate (I Really Don’t Like You)’, which was dedicated to anyone out of love. This definitely got a more passionate response from the crowd, obviously a room full of broken hearts then. It was a great song though.

I also liked, ‘Friends Don’t Let Friends Dial Drunk’, which is about a girl that Tom liked but she only ever called him when she was drunk and when she was sober had nothing to do with him. I don’t think he’ll be having that problem too much in the future to be honest. Most of the lyrics are laced with off beat humour and clever but down to earth edges. Put that together will really catch and infectious hooks and that’s what the gig was all about.

The hightlight of the night for most people had to be to the penultimate song, by far the song that has launched the Plain White T’s over here, ‘Hey There Delilah’. As soon as Tom donned his acoustic guitar, the chants of ‘Delilah’ started. A sea of mobile phones appeared as the high energy of the night mellowed for the first time. Mobiles replacing lighters, dont know if that’s down to advances in technology or the smoking ban? Seems like, ‘Hey There Delilah’ could be to the Plain White T’s, what ‘Angels’ is to Robbie. The crowd out sang Tom. He could have stopped completely and let the audience carry on and they wouldn’t have minded one bit. It is worth saying though that this song was a complete change in direction to the rest of the gig and obviously what is on their ablum but the rest is just as good, just more up tempo.

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