Hedley, MXPX, Faber – Live (March 6th, 2006)

Let me get this out of the way right away: even though Hedley was headlining, it was MXPX who stole the show, and it was them who I went to see. But before either of those bands stepped on stage, it was Vancouver’s Faber who had to warm up the crowd.

Now, I had never heard anything by the band, or anything from the band, so they stepped onto the stage with a clear slate. They put on a pretty decent performance, and surprisingly, there were quite a few people there who knew the words and were instantly singing along. The first song or so, they were moderately stagnant but soon started to move and put more energy in the songs – particularly the bass player who put in the most energy out of them all. The guitarist threw in a few guitar solos which were impressive, although by the time he did his fourth or fifth one in a thirty minute set they started to seem more like a gimmick than anything else. They ended the set with Sex And Love and really, just kicked off the evening nicely. They weren’t anything spectacular or ultra energizing, but were decent enough for the first band of the night.

After an extremely long thirty minute wait, the band I was there to see finally stepped on stage. After being a fan for so many years, I was incredibly excited to see MXPX grace the stage, they did not disappoint (hell, they put on such a good show they convinced me to dish out thirty bucks for a T-shirt at the end of the night). From the moment they stepped on stage they let it all out with their biggest single Responsibility, and after that they jumped into the newerHeard The Sound. That was the basic structure of their entire forty-five minute set, a new one then an older one, and then back again. And they played a great selection too, Well Adjusted, Wrecking Hotel Rooms, Young and Depressed, The Next Big Thing and My Life Story all made appearances.

Throughout their entire set they had complete control of the crowd, it was clear to see how they’ve been a band for so long because they were able to do stunts that normally only headliners can get away with. They split the crowd in two to sing different parts of a song, got circle pits moving and got every singing along during the cover of The Proclaimer‘s I Would Walk 500 Miles. Not only that, but they kept an eye out for the fans too. As they were just going into the final chorus of My Life Story, the entire band came to a complete halt to stop a fight between the security guards and a crowd member (to be fair, in this case, the guy deserved it after just punching the smallest bouncer over the barrier for no reason). They had just the right amount of chatter in between the songs to get the crowd really into the set, and ended it perfectly with the fan favorite Punk Rawk Show. They walked off the stage, having reached and surpassed all my expectations.

Next up was the headliner, Hedley, and to be fair, I’m very biased when it comes to this band because quite frankly, I can’t stand them. Musically, they aren’t horrible, just your generic radio friendly rock with no real umph. The reason they annoy me so is simply due to the singer, Jacob Hoggard. For those of you who don’t know, Hedley became big after Hoggard was one of the finalists on Canadian Idol before telling everyone to vote against him so he can do the music business “on his own”. So he fired his old band mates and got a brand new band that instantly got signed. But that’s not even what annoys me, no, it’s Hoggard’s entire persona that irritates the bloody daylights out of me.

First off, he stepped on the stage wearing a red wife beater that was way to small which proudly proclaimed “I Only Party With The Best” and then matching underwear on top of his pants (see the picture for proof). And then, most of his in-between song chatter was just awkward and really inappropriate for the crowd. It was just sex joke after sex joke, holding the microphone to his crotch like an erect penis, ramming the mic up the guitarist’s ass, and so on. Then, on top of that, how he moves when he sings seems to irk me too. It’s as if he tries to blend the metro sexuality of Gerard Way with the sporadicness of Ben Kowalewicz mixed with a bit of Mick Jagger and fails miserably at it. But I guess if you were a fan of the band, then you enjoyed it, because they did sound good, played all the right songs like On My Own, Trip, Rage and 3-2-1 along with an acoustic version of Villains – I just couldn’t get passed my biased of how much I dislike the singer.

Overall, the night was still a success, because quite frankly, after seeing a performance like MXPX‘s, nothing can ruin the night.