“This whole place is gonna burn.“
For many within and beyond our camp at Boolin Tunes, Pierce The Veil represent the best of emo-pop sensibility and blistering post hardcore. They exemplify the sound of the early 2010s, especially on records like Collide With the Sky and Selfish Machines. This shouldn’t be enough to fling to them arena level alone, yet here we are at the Wembley Arena, a small but significant step up from their show last year at Alexandra Palace, a scale that was already getting silly. It could be down to their 2023 album The Jaws Of Life, a (perhaps inevitable) switch up towards an alt-rock sound, or their uncanny ability to repeatedly go viral. Bets are on the second – even now everyone seems to be bemused by the popularity of “So Far So Fake“, let alone “King for a Day“. As artists move to larger venues, it’s typically a bad thing for the audience, and certainly for their wallets. The spectacle of an arena doesn’t hit the same as the intimacy of a more personal show. Have Pierce The Veil band risen to the challenge, or is this a bubble bursting in slow motion?
Words by Dobbin T, photography by Amy Shephard – contact Amy prior to any use.
Crawlers
Firstly, our apologies to Crawlers, whose start time of 5:55pm was too tall an order for us to get our reviewer in for. The only scrutiny of the band we can offer are Amy’s killer shots:
Hot Mulligan
The first band on tonight’s bill that is fully ‘Boolin Certified’, leading to a lot of excitement but also some pause. On their 2024 UK tour there was wide agreement that the band seemed rusty and were on a vocal low. This wouldn’t matter much when the room capacity is low and everyone is a die hard fan, but in an arena, you have to put your best foot forward. Fortunately, the band were on top form and smashed through a set of mostly new songs. Tades Sanville repeated his career-best performance on The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still.
The three key singles went down well, with “Island in the Sun” feeling especially tropical and ironic. Most of Why Would I Watch was put aside for this tour, just “Shhhh! Golf Is On”, though opener “Drink Milk and Run” is an honorary track from this era. The oldest tracks are all practically locked in for the band at this point: “*Equip Sunglasses*” and “BCKYRD” are becoming timeless. Still, the arena did work against them, with the high end all sapped, and the lack of production beyond a backdrop offering little for those in the distant seats. Their modern tracks have them all glued to mics, so there wasn’t much in the way of stage antics, either. Hot Mulligan were a great inclusion to the line-up, and one that proudly represents the direction of modern emo, but wait until you see them headline before you truly tick them off any bucket lists.
Cavetown
Here’s where the bill gets really mixed. This site does its best to cover queer music, and our lean is toward the aggressive, emotive, or ethereal varieties – the quirky twee stuff is valid, just not in our court. There’s plenty of traction to justify Cavetown in this spot, an artist who has had too many viral moments to name. Unlike the brainrot culture driving up the numbers for “So Far So Fake“, the appeal is underlined by the honest, approachable personality of Robin Daniel Skinner. If this was just an attempt to “get down with the kids”, it worked – an entire generation of alt teens really have grown up alongside Skinner. Yet many of us at the top end of Pierce The Veil’s demographic can no longer relate to lyrics like “just turned fourteen, and I think this year I’m going to be mean” or “measuring against the wall again / it’s always the same, but maybe this time I’ve changed“. It was easy to think of more fitting bands for this spot that would speak to the post hardcore, screamo, or even the ‘mallcore’ sound of Pierce The Veil.
Of course, the whole point of a mixed bill is to keep things spicy and take people out of their comfort zones. In the case of Cavetown, their music literally is a comfort zone. Some of the woozier cute tracks didn’t land for me: “Sweet Tooth”, “Heart Attack” and “Guilty” were all missing some deeper character. New song “Baby Spoon” pulls a clever trick in studio by putting Skinner on a fuzzy bass, but on this live version the guitar quashed its cosiness. Otherwise, it was all smiles, especially the heavier turns on “1994”, and Vic Fuentes’ feature for “a kind thing to do”. Equipping a guitar only for the pivotal moments, Skinner’s bouncy stage presence was heart-warming, overcoming the lack of a more dramatic setup. The final three tracks are surely Cavetown’s pivotal ones: “Home” and “Boys Will Be Bugs” were huge singalongs and a showcase of Skinner’s knack for vocal melodies since forever, and “Devil Town” finally got people moshing. When I’m after queer bedroom emo, early Car Seat Headrest will always be my go-to, but Cavetown has convinced me that it’s also OK to look on the bright side sometimes.
Pierce The Veil
Last year’s Pierce The Veil tour was substantively about The Jaws Of Life, convincing many to take their genre shift seriously. This time it was a “celebration of their history together over 18 years“, marked by the screens showing the icons of each of the five albums. The set list lived up to this, representing everything from the start to the end. The biggest treat was the throwback all the way to A Flair for the Dramatic, and a meaningful one at that, with three songs represented. “Yeah Baby Doll Face” is living proof that they’ve always had it from day one, and that they can still play that song perfectly speaks volumes for their innate talent. “I’d Rather Die Than Be Famous” was a deeper cut, possibly the most “post hardcore” they’ve ever sounded (squint and it’s The Fall Of Troy on 50% speed, with Fuentes’ amazing vocals). I saw one attendee with an entirely custom shirt made for the track’s lyrics; as far as I’m concerned, the song was dedicated to her. Misadventures is a deep album and always seems hard for the band to cover, but we’ll take “Floral & Fading” and the pre-encore “Circles”, which started the circle pit it deserved.
The pivotal cuts from Collide With The Sky were much anticipated. “Bulls in the Bronx” was the second track played, replete with the Spanish guitar solo and enthralling ending. Bassist Jaime Preciado did most of the scream-work for all this early work, and the remaining The Jaws Of Life cuts which were full of a different kind of attitude, no less heavy. Perhaps Pierce The Veil are popular, but they are still proudly ‘screamo’, and we hope they don’t lose sight of that on any future albums. The semi-acoustic track of the night was “Wonderless” which was a pleasant, if less essential moment. Speaking of non-essentials, they slipped in a cover of “Where Is My Mind?”, which will have pricked the ears of a few dads in the room. Much like last year’s “Karma Police”, I’d take any Pierce The Veil song over any cover; at least this felt like a snippet, not a full rendition. With such gains there’s always a loss, with my most sore being the lack of “Caraphernelia”, “Besitos” and “A Match Into Water“.
It took four bands to get to a proper “arena” set up, and it really delivered. The stage was mostly clear with simple risers behind the band, allowing them to strike their silhouettes against the backlights. After a few songs the screens switched on with glitched footage and spliced graphics creating a visual treat, akin to a live music video. Each track had a specific direction and perfect sync with the music, a few blasting their lyrics out (“I can’t hear you” was inevitable during “Pass The Nirvana”). The running of the set did feel quite stop-start, with many extended introductions and lengthy light cuts whilst guitars were swapped; if you’re seated then you’ve no breath to catch, and an uncanny feeling can set in. Overall, they comfortably rose to the challenge of Wembley’s scale. Here’s hoping they don’t go so viral that they feel the need to upgrade the capacity yet again.
