They not only sang along and screamed. Turning up in droves, dozens of female teenagers also threw their bras and a few panties onto the stage in an outburst of adulation for the American pop-punk band All Time Low.
“The girls brought extra bras on purpose,” a lady fan told the Inquirer at the height of the band concert on Thursday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“No, they didn’t take off what they were wearing.”
The throwing of underwear was apparently an expected sidelight to the band’s concerts; some of the bras even had written messages on them.
All Time Low lead singer-rhythm guitarist Alexander Gaskarth looked amazed at the crowd’s wild reception and shouted an obscenity.
A young mother who had accompanied her kids to the show winced upon hearing the profanities, which were casually tossed at certain moments of the program.
‘Marry me, Jack’
The fans couldn’t care less. They stood on chairs to get a better view of their idols and closed their eyes while singing along to the band’s juvenile musings on life and love.
Between songs, some screamed out their feelings: “Marry me, Jack!”—referring to lead guitarist Jack Barakat, whose mic stand ended up displaying many of the undergarments.
“He collects them,” said the lady fan, her voice straining hard against the deafening blast of guitars and drums. “Gosh, Jack has more bras than I have!”
As young as 12
A number of fans held up homemade placards to catch the band’s attention: “I’m turning 16 … Birthday kiss?”
Barakat obviously attracted his own set of adoring fans. In one instance, Gaskarth cracked a joke in a sing-song manner to tease Barakat: “Everybody say … Jack has a small (vulgarity deleted)…”
The girls in the crowd, some as young as 12, were either quite used to hearing street language or were simply too engrossed ogling at the band’s good-looking members to mind the profanities.
Frenetic songs
Asked what it was about All Time Low that appealed most to her, a 13-year-old girl said: “The songs speak to me in a personal way and there have been times when they helped me get on with my life.”
The tunes were in fact very catchy—delivered in the frenetic-pace tradition of classic punk rock. The lyrics, however, were devoid of the no-future howls and bring-down-the-establishment political rants that turned British bands like The Sex Pistols and The Clash into overnight celebrities in the late 1970s.
But then punk music was not just about social struggle; there were other popular bands then like the Ramones from New York, which sang about the frustrations of love and having a good time—themes which All Time Low seemed to excel at.
At the concert, the girls went crazy over songs like “Do You Want Me Dead?,” “Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t)” and “Wasted Time On You”—which talked about typical lovers’ quarrels in a manner so frustrating it captured the sentiments of everyone who’s been caught in similar situations.
Down and out
“This song really helped me get through tough times,” Gaskarth said in introducing the ballad “Therapy.” Performing the track on acoustic guitar, Gaskarth drew loud cheers as he sang about feeling down and out, and seeking help.
The audience also identified with other numbers about getting drunk and happy (“Six Feet Under the Stars”), and generally behaving like the world-can-go-hang-but-meanwhile-let’s-have-fun.
“Let’s go all the way tonight … We can dance till we die,” sang Garkarth, and the fans howled.
If there were worried looks among their dads and moms that night, the kids would’ve soothed them with something like, “Hey, chill, it’s only rock ’n’ roll.”