A tour like this has possibly been in the minds of pop punk fans for a while, As It Is backing up their impressive new album okay. and State Champs, coming up to the two year anniversary of their newest album Around The World And Back are arguably two of the best UK (As It Is) and USA (State Champs) based up and coming bands, there’s nothing you can possibly complain about with this tour.
As It Is, armed with many different jumps and microphone swinging, they chuck their new album straight into the fans faces’ with title track from their new album ‘okay.’. By the time the band reached the end of their set with ‘Hey Rachel’ and ‘Dial Tones’ the crowd only grew louder. You might have even mistaken them for the main act given the crowd reaction and it might possibly go down as one of the best As It Is shows Leeds has seen, and the night is far from over.
State Champs’ exciting lighting dazzled about as much as their music, their opener ‘Hard To Please’ from their debut album The Finer Things shows the roots of what had now come to be their unique hooks and bubbly rhythms. ‘All You Are Is History’ and ‘Shape Up’ perfectly fill the setlist with tracks from an album that’s solidified State Champs as one of THE pop punk bands of this era. And of course you can’t have a State Champs show without ‘Elevated’ which always causes a riot among fans, bodies upon bodies, but surely State Champs are never tired of seeing that.
However less jumpy than As It Is they make up for it in finger pointing and the sheer amount of crowd surfers piling over the barrier towards the end of the set. All you will see from State Champs is a continuous rise to domination and hopefully As It Is will be back to fill this venue for themselves, because they sure proved they can.
