Post-V Day show of Paramore rocks Manila

Slamdancing and screaming with the mammoth crowd, INQUIRER.net’s resident rocker-reporter Karen Boncocan does her best to get closer to the stage and take photos of her favorite rock band since her college days but taller heads prevail.  She survives Paramore’s Friday night concert in one piece to write and email her story—plus this photo—before sunrise Saturday. 

MANILA, Philippines—After dropping out of the radar, Paramore is back on tour and more excited to play music for its global fans.

The tour was timed before the official release of the trio’s fourth album titled “Paramore” in April this year and vocalist Hayley Williams said that finally being able to perform to large screaming fans after a long wait—a hiatus of two years, to be exact—was “awesome.”

Second Manila show

In the first half of the group’s show at SM Mall of Asia’s The Arena on Friday night, Williams recalled their first concert way back in 2010 which they dubbed “Para Thrilla in Manila” and Williams said that Friday’s roughly two-hour performance was a “Para Thrilla in Manila Part 2.”

She said that the Philippines was their second show in this year’s tour and declared that their much-awaited continuation of their musical career “begins now… We won’t be going home for a very long time.”

“Be excited with us, this is huge. So many bands want to come here, this is a big deal and we’re so blessed and honored to play here,” she told the audience.

Paramore has a long way to go for this year’s tour, their next stop being Malaysia before they head on to Australia, the United States and Europe.

Difficult hiatus

“The last two years were hard. We’ve been through a lot but we made it through (and) we’ve never been more grateful to play music, it’s such a gift—an honor, it was you guys and everyone around the world who encouraged us online through your stories. You made us feel that we were still close to you even if we were gone for a long time,” she said.

Paramore, originally a five-member group, went through a messy break-up back in 2010 after its successful third album “Brand New Eyes” due to ongoing tensions within the group.

Farro brothers, Josh and Zac, left Williams, Taylor York and Jeremy Davis who have now decided to forge on as Paramore, sans the two members.

Despite the changes Williams claimed that it felt “really good to be playing shows again.”

New song, new album

Paramore opened its show in Manila with “Now”, the first single off its yet to be released fourth album, bringing an explosive start to its performance with the audience screaming the song’s infectious chorus “Don’t try to take this from me/ Don’t try to take this from me/ Now.”

The self-titled album is Paramore’s first effort as a three-piece, but reception to “Now” has been quite well, with several audience members overheard telling their friends that they wanted to hear the new single live.

The jam-packed SM Mall of Asia Arena vibrated with the new track’s beats at 8:55 p.m. as the audience chanted the new song’s addictive chorus.

They followed it up with tracks from its earlier albums, like the stripped-down “In the Mourning” with Williams crooning “in the mourning I’ll rise/ In the mourning I’ll let you die/ In the mourning all my sorries.”

And the crowd willingly went where Williams led them from the heavy beats of “Renegade”, the popular Twilight movie theme “Decode” to the sugary sweet “The Only Exception”.

She even got the audience snapping their fingers to “Fences” and singing and stomping along to “Looking up”.

Crowd favorites “Ignorance” and “Brick by Boring Brick” really got the audience screaming for the trio, flailing their fists in the air in salute to music they have not heard live since 2010.

The band’s running off stage after “Brick by Boring Brick” at 10:27 p.m. elicited shouts for an encore which Paramore granted, jumping back on stage to play “Hello Cold World” after several minutes.

“We’re not ready to go home yet,” Williams said at around 10:29 p.m.

A third Paramore concert?

“Manila, are you still gonna be here next time we see you? Because this is totally insane, it’s too much,” she said, pointing to the crowd spilling over the bleachers.

Paramore capped off the show with their first hit in 2007 “Misery Business”, making it even sweeter for a fan named Vanessa who Williams picked out from the mammoth crowd to sing and dance with her on stage.

“Cause I got him where I want him now/ And if you could then you know you would/ ‘Cause God it just feels so… It just feels so good,” chanted the crowd as Williams drew the concert to a close.

By 10:43 p.m. the crowd dazedly walked out of the arena, taking with them the promise of another Paramore concert and Williams’ assurance “please know that you are so important. Don’t let anyone make you feel you’re not important because every single one of you have most definitely changed our lives.”