Paramore managed to flog ‘Riot’ to within an inch of it’s life. True, the label has managed to milk the record and squeezed every last dollar out of it, making the band, and Hayley in particular, superstars. But they’ve been everywhere for so long that ‘Misery Business’ et al have become dull and overplayed. The live show is also predictable and obvious – but that’s what you get (no pun intended) when you tour the same set for two years straight. As one last throw of the dice band and label have cobbled together this DVD of a live performance in Chicago from earlier this year. And if you’re a Paramore fan, or you’ve never seen them live, this is pretty good. It has all the fan favourites, the band perform the songs well, it’s well shot…let’s just say it ticks all the right boxes.
But if you’ve seen the band once or twice this is as badly scripted as all of their live shows. Hayley throws her hair around, the boys synchronize star jumps and ‘Misery Business’ gets played last. It’s more teen pop concert than punk rock show, even if the band give it their all. It’s just a bit too fake, like they’re trying that bit too hard. Still, those in attendance at this show love it. ‘Fences’ and ‘Decoy’ go down like a hooker desperate for a fix and ‘Pressure’, unsurprisingly, has the teenage audience cheering loudly. As Hayley says many times, it’s “awesome”.
For me there are a few faults. The between song chatter is a bit too schamltzy Yank “we love you Chicago” which, to be fair, Hayley does do at every show and just inserts the latest city at the end. Songs are dragged out (‘Let The Flames Begin’) way longer than they need to be, ‘Emergency’ has a very strange and needless keyboard solo at the beginning and takes way too long to get going. It’s like the band are desperate for some kind of creative fix because they’re bored of the same old songs, but it doesn’t work.
The extras are better. The documentaries are interesting, although they don’t offer anything too exclusive or different. If anything they show the singer to be a bit of a diva while the guys kind of potter around as extras. If you love Paramore you’ll love this. It’s not groundbreaking and it’s not the best live performance ever, but it’s enjoyable enough to watch at least once. It replicates the real Paramore live show, which is a bit predictable after your first showing. But it’s worthy of a watch and a listen in any case.