The space was pretty intimate for such a pricey venue. Looking starry-eyed at the low-set stage, the young, in their grungy plaid shirts and black skinnies, hogged the mosh-pit in The Coliseum at Resorts World Sentosa, waiting in nervy anticipation for the Arizonian powerpop punks Jimmy Eat World.
Straddling the rim of the mosh was a diverse crowd in their late twenties and early thirties who probably up with the band, chilling out with beer in hand and bantering among themselves. Even a bunch of old fogies were there, proving bare-naked teenage vitriol and mid-life crises have always been fashionable.
At 8pm sharp, frontman Jim Adkins and his troupe of merry lads strode onstage in a nondescript manner and kicked off the party with the ever popular angst anthem “Bleed American.” While it looked like their hearts weren’t really into it for the first few songs, Jim started picking up and warming into the performance right around “Coffee & Cigarettes,” just after the photographers left the photo pit. This is despite him griping light-heartedly about our sweltering weather (“If it’s hot we are used to it in Arizona but the humidity here is insane.”) and his shirt getting more and more soaked in sweat as the gig progressed. The rest of the band, however, only really got into the groove about halfway through the set.
Like most bands, they saved their best for last, with a killer rendition of their most rocking hits “Middle” and “Sweetness,” which launched a massive sing-along session joined by some discordant, drunken blokes (we blame the Jägermeister test tubes hawked by girls in flaming red tops).
