The 5 Seconds of Summer Show was a welcome celebration of the band’s discography for the fans
Updated: Sep 5
A perfect culmination of mainstream, B-sides, and rarities, old and new, and everything in between, The 5 Seconds of Summer Show delivered with giving both die-hard fans and casual listeners a show to remember at the Armory on Monday night.
The 5 Seconds of Summer Show, the band’s most recent and current tour, is centered around the idea of an old cable television show with TV stands on the stage and clips in between segments of the show resembling that of TV infomercials, sitcoms, and just all-around quirky jokes and segways. They had done this style of video for their 10th anniversary show as well a few years back which was posted on YouTube to celebrate with the fans in unison of the release of their song “2011”. The clips were a welcome callback for fans during the show which shows their genuinely quirky personalities, which is why the fans love them so much.
5 Seconds of Summer has been my second favorite band for quite some time and I have been a listener of their music since the beginning. After being spoiled with so many amazing shows so far this year that have made it on the list of the best shows I have ever been to, I think there are some things that could have made this tour better, but I do also think it was truly a great show I will think about for years to come.
One thing I love about this tour and their last one (which are only a year apart) is their choice of openers for the shows. This year’s single opener was Meet Me At The Altar, an all-girl, and almost all-queer group, which don’t get the attention that they deserve. Last year’s opener was Pale Waves, which is also a female-led and queer punk group. These groups rarely get the traction that male punk groups get and are often left out of the mainstream scene. It was awesome to see that representation, especially since a lot of 5SOS’ following does identify as queer. Perhaps it was a performative choice, but to me, it felt like a genuine platform they enjoyed sharing.
Meet Me At The Alter also did get the crowd excited for 5SOS’ set as well. They preformed their own songs and a few covers from the early 2000’s like Burnin’ Up, Since You’ve Been Gone and Complicated. The juxtaposition of the covers and the lead singer’s use of “slay” throughout the set made me laugh, but it was also perfect.
Another big draw to the tour and the show is the band’s incorporation of older songs and trying to work in people’s favorite songs that they often leave off the setlist. They implemented this giant dice that they threw into the crowd at one point in the show. It is then that the crowd has to surf the dice around and back to the stage within a certain time. If the dice makes it back, the song on the side of the dice it lands on on stage will be played, if it doesn’t, then the band gets to pick one of the six songs listed on the dice to play.
At the Minneapolis show, the song the crowd picked by chance was an old one named “Heartbreak Girl.” The song has turned into a meme in the fandom due to how much the fans love the song and how much the lead singer hates the song. This was only the second show on the tour to get the song (at an earlier date, the dice had landed on Heartbreak Girl and Luke Hemmings switched the dice to a different song to avoid playing it).
“See boys, that wasn’t so bad now was it?” Calum Hood, the bassist in the band said after they finished playing.
While one of my biggest critiques of 5SOS’ shows in recent years is that they take far fewer talking breaks during the shows than they used to (I think that the best shows are ones where the artists interact with the crowds), the breaks they did have left a little bit of joy and a little bit of misery with the fans.
There has been speculation that the band might take an extended break from touring given that at many shows on the tour, Minneapolis included, they had said this might be the last time we see them for a while or “who knows when we will see each other again?”. There have, however, been interviews with members of the band saying that they are excited to start writing their next record. Only time will tell, but it was a motivation for the crowd to sing even louder than it was before, which trust me, was quite loud.
The video aspects of the 5 Seconds of Summer show did help with this, but because of the short breaks, people who are not already in the fandom and know how these four Australian men act, do not necessarily see their personalities in the show to the full scale, especially compared to what it used to be like. We get bits here and there, but not like how I remember it being on their earlier tours.
This tour was extra special because we did get to experience those deep cuts and throwback songs we don’t typically get, which personally are my favorites. We FINALLY got some love from some albums that the fandom started with, particularly the album called “Sounds Good, Feels Good”, whose songs barely make it onto the setlist on most tours.
My only complaint with the songs is that they don’t play most of them in full. I get that in order to incorporate more songs in the set list, they are only able to play short segments from many of the songs, but ones that I have been waiting to see for a long time were shortened to almost criminally short bits that left out a lot of the best parts of the song.
All this is to say, it was still a great show and yet another goose-bump-inducing, chills-running-through-my-body kind of sing-along (yes, these guys do it to me every time). I hope it’s not many years until we are able to see the Australian band called 5 Seconds of Summer, but if it is, the show in Minneapolis filled my soul in the 5SOS hole that was left there, at least for a while.
Setlist
Bad Omens
2011
Caramel
Blender
Easier
Babylon
If Walls Could Talk
She's Kinda Hot
Amnesia
Carousel
Who Do You Love?
Vapor
Waste the night
Don’t Stop
Heartbreak Girl (roll the dice song)
Ghost of You
Want You Back
Disconnected
You Don’t Go To Parties
Me, Myself and I
Why Won't you love me
Best Friends
Meet You There
Teeth
Jet Black Heart
She Looks So Perfect
Outer space/carry-on (encore)
Youngblood (encore)