Jimmy Eat World
Live at Leeds Metropolitan University on Thursday, 26th April 2007
We arrive at the Met bar ten minutes before doors open, to see the queue stretching all the way down the road, towards Millennium Square. Something tells us that a pint would be a good idea, so by the time we return, we've missed most of the support slot, and decide not to venture in since they don't sound that great anyway.
Jimmy Eat World, however, would have to do something pretty damn horrific to fail here tonight. You see, over the course of the weekend, Jimmy Eat World will be playing - sorry, headlining - the mammoth Give it a Name festival, playing to over 20,000 people over two nights, and this is a chance for them to stretch their live legs in an intimate setting. The response that greets them as they take to the stage with a massive "Salt, Sweat, Sugar" is nothing, if not complete and utter worship. And they return the favour and then some with more solid gold slices of feel good power-pop than any band I care to mention. These guys are song-writing geniuses, from the driving yet melodic "Pain", to the brittle "Your House", Jimmy Eat World bring everything you want and more. A rough and ready run through "Get it Faster" is a particular set highlight, and the smattering of new material shows that they haven't lost it yet, retaining the melody of "Clarity" era material, with the anthemic, driving rockers of "Futures".
Elsewhere throughout the set, "Authority Song" provides an anthemic respite after a clutch of bouncier offerings from earlier albums, an absolutely spine tingling sing-along is ready to greet fan favourite "Sweetness", and even though it isn't all they're about any more, "The Middle" provided a joyous sing-along of its own.
If this evening proved one thing, it's that you don't have to be a chart shagging, world beating emo titan to write phenomenal songs. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Leeds will always love Jimmy Eat World.
