The night started off with Cassyette. She brought pop and turned it into metal on stage, creating a nu metal vibe. She mostly sings in a clean voice, but here and there she throws in a nice scream, creating her own style. The crowd was a bit tough on her though. She gave it her all and tried to create a wall of death, but the crowd didn’t seem ready for it yet. Watch Cassyette play her break-up song ‘Mayhem’ live here:

Opening with the Star Wars theme, Simple Plan was ready to get the show started. By using ‘I’d Do Anything’ as their opening song, they already had one classic out of their way. Their setlist was a true pearl. It contained all the songs you want to hear and more. Their classic songs like ‘I’m Just a Kid‘ and ‘Shut Up‘ were there. And lets not forget ‘Perfect’ and ‘Your Love is a Lie’. Probably the most well known Simple Plan song, ‘Welcome to My Life’, was there too. That was the moment I couldn’t hear lead singer Pierre Bouvier anymore and all of the crowd were singing on top op their lungs. 

I loved to hear ‘Jet Lag‘ live. They’ve performed the song with different female singers throughout the years. This time, it was AIRxYEL performing with them. The feelings of the song got visual when watching the interaction between AIRxYEL and Pierre on stage. A real blast form the past that made your heart ache in a good way. Right after the performance of radio hit ‘Summer Paradise’, we got to hear a song from the latest album ‘Harder Than it Looks’ with ‘Iconic‘. The song that is about people trying to talk you out of your dreams, but you should never give up on those dreams and chase them anyway.

During ‘I’m Just a Kid’, drummer Chuck Comeau came down to the microphone and Pierre took over the drums. Chuck wanted to crowd surf, but because of COVID he was not allowed to do that, so they found a solution to do it anyway. Chuck put on a white overall and a gas-mask before he jumped into the crowd. Quite the view I have to say, but it shows how much the band enjoys to be on stage in front of an audience. They wrote a song about that too, it’s called ‘Where I Belong’. They also played that during this show, and I don’t think I ever shouted lyrics that loud in my life. This song has been my song during COVID, longing for shows to continue again soon. Closer ‘Perfect’ was, well yeah, perfect to close the show with. A powerful song with calm moments in the middle and electric guitars around the edges. A memorable show to say the least.

I forgot Canada is also bilingual, since lead singer Pierre Bouvier apparently speaks fluently French which he did throughout the show. Luckily, he also threw in some English for the non French speaking part of Belgium. At the merch stand, they were selling signed books, but unfortunately, they were only in french. It would have been nice to see them in English too. But that’s the only negative point I can tell you about this show. I loved every second of it, from the first to the last note. I’ve sung my lungs out to all the hits they have to offer. That’s nice if you’re seeing Simple Plan for the first time, like me, and you’ve never heard their songs live. But if you are going to see them more often, I can get that you want to hear other songs live too. Because, besides those hits, they have a lot more great music to offer.

Sum 41 went full throttle from start to finish. There was fire, a lot of fire, and a lot of shredding and jumping. They started with ‘Motivation’, and just when you think the song was going to end, they blasted a killer guitar solo in between flame throwers. Well, that set the mood for the rest of the evening. Since this is the Does This Look All Killer No Filler Tour, Sum 41 is mostly playing songs from their first two albums Does This Look Infected and All Killer No Filler. The first celebrating its 21st birthday and the second celebrating its 20th.

I loved that they played ‘Makes No Difference’, which is their very first single ever released into the world. Speaking of releasing stuff into the world, Sum 41 casually announced a double album that’s supposed to come out next year AND a world tour. Singer Deryck Whibley told us it is called ‘Heaven and Hell’. The heaven side being the pop punk side of Sum 41, the hell side being heavy stuff to mosh around to. They wouldn’t play any new, unreleased songs, but they could tell us that the recording of it was almost finished. There’s no date for it yet, but we’ll probably hear about that soon.

We got all the hit songs like ‘Motivation’, ‘The Hell Song’, ‘Into Deep’, ‘Underclass Hero’, ‘Walking Disaster’, … . Everyone was saving their last bit of energy for the closer though. You guessed it: ‘Fat Lip’. Man, I’ve had that song on repeat so many times and to hear it live and to hear the crowd being just as loud as the band, that’s simply amazing. We got to hear some relatively new songs too like ‘Fake My Own Death’ and ‘War’ from the album 13 Voices released in 2016. We didn’t get any songs from their latest album Order in Decline, released in 2019.

Lead singer Deryck Whibley also asked us to take care of each other, to not let anyone get hurt. I appreciate it when a band looks out for us. The security though, was handling the crowd surfers what looked to be very violently in the beginning of the show. Maybe they didn’t have any experience with punk rock or metal crowds yet. Luckily it got better once they saw that there were only more people going to crowdsurf. Sum 41 seems very down to earth and thanked us all for coming and showing up, since everything is getting more expensive, so are concerts and transport, and they showed their gratitude. Thank you Sum 41 for the amazing show and for being so down to earth. See you next time!