Music
Paramore, Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Three stars
The Usher Hall might not be quite as small as Paramore singer Hayley Williams implied with her talk of playing intimate venues, but by the Tennessee band’s arena rock standards it probably felt tiny. These are early days promoting After Laughter, their fifth record and first in four years, so therefore the band, currently seven strong for gigs, were playing a set shorn of pyro or gimmickry.
That didn’t hamper the new tunes, which are a warm, fizzy pop reinterpretation of the band’s angsty rock. The bouncy Rose-Coloured Boy, where Williams donned a Scottish hat chucked at her, Caught In The Middle’s Fleetwood Mac do a teen movie vibe and sugar rush set closer Hard Times all possessed sunshine soaked hooks and earworm choruses in abundance.
Williams herself remains a great, eager frontwoman of constant movement, although the rest of the band (now minus bassist Jeremy Davis but with former drummer Zac Farro back) resembled men fresh from a prep boy catalogue.
Yet although Williams spoke about being in the Paramore family the set sometimes felt frustratingly machine like, particularly a first half lacking chat or interaction. The snap of old tunes like Brick By Boring Brick or Decode has become ill-fittingly smooth and Hate To See Your Heart Break slowed the pace terribly, while a couple of covers (an unremarkable Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac, a goofy, indulgent Scooby’s In The Back from Farro’s other band HalfNoise) were unneeded.
They still have an emotional power though, made clear when Misery Business saw Williams joined onstage by a fan called Eleanor and Chvrches singer Lauren Mayberry (clearly having an absolute blast). The trio gleefully hollered away, leading the crowd in catharsis as celebration.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article