picture taken from the band's myspace profile

There are bands who see the need to constantly change up the setlist for their shows and there are bands out there, who simply do not need to re-arrange their songs.

I‘m pretty sure there are people who are disappointed to find that All Time Low played the same show as they did in September, only on a bigger stage. But really? Can you be disappointed in a band like All Time Low?

After all, they did follow up on Alex‘ promise to come and visit Germany again as soon as possible.

Dreading to go and see them play at the Live Music Hall in Cologne as the venue is known for bad acoustics, I was pleasantly surprised that their show still felt as refreshing, as passionately performed as the last time in a much small set-up and that the quality of their sound had even improved.

The bigger stage only served Jack with a bigger playground for his stage antics, which included climbing up Rian‘s drum kit, flinging himself on his knees and occasionally on his back and kicking his legs up as high as they allow.

Alex and Zack of course roamed around the stage just as much, chatting to the audience in between songs such as Poppin‘ Champagne and Jasey Rae.

Whereas the last time panties found their way on stage, it were bras this time. The guys could not help but comment on it, joking about not wearing a bra and not being forced into wearing one. And that was only one of the many stage banter moments.

The show was as much of a party to the band as it was to the audience – take the reaction to A Party Song for example: Instead of aimlessly jumping around, people were actually dancing.

But just as there was dancing, laughing and goofing around, there were a few minutes when everyone could recover. Alex played Remembering Sunday all on his own again. Technically, he wasn‘t singing on his own though: The audience helped out a big deal, all the while lightening up the hall with mobile phones and camera flashes.

As I expected (and wouldn‘t want to have had it any other way), the set ended with Damned if I do ya and Dear Maria.

After the show, I told my friend that I simply do not understand people who don‘t like going to shows. There is not much better than seeing a band perform their tracks live and actually sound like the record or even better. There is also not much better than seeing that people really do like what they are doing every night.

Some people love making music, some people live music. I guess with the guys in All Time Low, it‘s just both.

Note that my review has been cross-posted to my buzznet profile as well. You will find all my photos of the show there as well as they were taken for buzznet :)

Before All Time Low took the stage by storm (sorry for the pun but it was just there for grabbing!) though, the crowd received support band The Audition at the fully sold out and packed venue.

450 people – and to my surprise female and male attendees to equal parts – formed a mosh pit on what is usually the dancefloor of a drum‘n‘bass night club and had the temperature rise to unbearable degrees and the A/C failing.

The Audition played a solid set composed of their more well-known songs, asking everyone to just dance and download their music anyway the audience could. It didn‘t feel like they were ,only‘ the support to heat up the masses for All Time Low. Everyone knew the lyrics to My Temperature Rising and Warm Me Up as well as Los Angeles which calmed the crowd down some and gave everyone a moment to breathe.

As soon as The Audition exited the stage and Rian Dawson‘s drum kit was revealed, focus shifted back to whom everyone had really come out for.

Thankfully, by then security (who‘d been not so awesome about press and photographers) had sorted out the pit and who didn‘t really belong in there, so I was able to snap some pictures of the band giving their all for Germany.

The set was short (ATL played ten songs plus two for the encore) but really sweet and a lot exhausting for everyone on stage, as there was a lot of kicking, jumping and dancing was going, as well as off stage, where the mob danced, screamed and sung their hearts out.

(Halfway through their second song, Six Feet Under The Stars, Jack took a seat at the edge of the stage, giving me the perfect opportunity to shoot a couple of close ups but alas! My camera failed me. Or rather: I failed because I didn‘t know what he eff was suddenly happening.)

Old and new songs blended in perfectly. There was a time to dance and a time to just sway along when Alex played Remembering Sunday. Also, there seemed to be a competition going on as to who could spew more curses and dirty words, it seemed.

At one point, Alex discussed the matter of not fitting his manhood into the pretty panties someone had thrown on stage (really, how mature was the audience?) and really, no manorexic man could have fit into them.

But all joking aside, musically the set was flawless, voices and instruments never failed the guys and everyone had a good time (and wow, does it sound like I‘m praising them ever so highly? Really, I don‘t, although I‘d have every reason to be biased!).

As mentioned, the night concluded with All Time Low playing two songs for the encore, Damned if I do ya and Dear Maria (Count Me In). The former had even the bar staff and the venue techs pumping their fists in the air for each Go.

Everyone got to express their amazement to the band personally (minus Rian) after the show when they all came out to meet the fans who‘d stuck around by the bus and venue.

It‘s safe to say that that night, show and after show hangs, was one of my favorite concert experiences so far. I got to hang out with some of my favorite people (junegloom and friends!) and randomly ran into the band guys.

Before the show, Jack and Rian crossed the queue to get into the venue from the hotel and after the show, we randomly walked around the venue and rounded a corner to find Jack and Zack walking into our direction and then pretty much stood in Alex‘ way when he wanted to get on the tour bus.

To top the night of, we managed to meet half the band – Alex, Rian and a couple of crew members – at Subway where we had a couple of delish subs and cookies and found out what the guys had ordered previous to our entry. We also got to take pictures with Rian (and Alex), so I can now be a fangirl and say that I met each member of All Time Low. The guys made their way over to the bar next door and well, I “promise we‘re not borderline stalkers‘” but we could still see them there through the windows from where we were sat at Subway.

We had to make our way back through the rain to the car, where our fun night of adventures sadly ended.

Still, the memories of the good time remain, neatly transformed into a video here by junegloom.

My pictures of the show were all taken for Buzznet.com (thanks again!) and are to be found here (I also just edited the end of my review for this site). It‘s insane how much feedback I got on the photos.