Words and photos by Sian Connolly
From the depths of Cleveland Ohio, born star Machine Gun Kelly brings his Mainstream Sellout World Tour to Leeds and it was indeed a sell out.
Starting off the show with some of his hit songs, rising star 44phantom gets everyone singing along to the likes of “poison”, “hurricane” and “problems” with 4 other phantom classics.
Following the Oklahoma star, Iann Dior takes the stage with his insane classics “strings”, “emotions” and “gone girl” coupled with Dior’s iconic hit single with 24k Goldn “mood” and “sick and tired” featuring Machine Gun Kelly.
As the lights dimmed and “Welcome to the black parade” by My Chemical Romance began echoing around the arena, the suspense was building as thousands of people eagerly waited for the main act. As the song comes to an end, Kelly himself descends from his iconic pink helicopter to the first song off his new album “born with horns”. The crowd goes crazy as the pink-haired grunge god hangs off the ladder above the stage, with a single spotlight just on him. As he finally touches down, he continues his set with a few more classics from his recent album, Mainstream Sellout, before calling back to the stage his close friend and touring partner, Iann Dior. The duo played their recent hit song “fake love don’t last” whilst bouncing around the stage and getting the crowd pumped. A few songs and a few drinks later, Kelly decides to call out another artist back to the stage, 44phantom, to sing their very recently released single “don’t sleep, repeat”. As the crowd continues to sing along, the atmosphere in the arena was ecstatic. Top songs from his albums “tickets to my downfall” and “hotel diablo” were also included in his throwback set as well as acoustic versions of “sid & nancy”, “love race”, “why are you here” and “jawbreaker”. The last song of the night was dedicated to his fiancé, Megan Fox, “twin flame”. There were some tears shared amongst the crowd with phone torches swaying in the air.
It was definitely a night to remember.
