The Wonder Years - 28 NOVEMBER @ Bóveda, Barcelona - review by buh!

Is there anything more endearing than an enthusiastic Euro talking emotively about their passions? Skatepunkers Spanish forum member, and friend of this blog, buh! (not his real name..) agreed to share his experiences from The Wonder Years show in Barcelona. Would they wear sombreros and play some flamenco songs? Would they take a stance against bull fighting? Would they appear to have any fun at all? Let's hand over to buh! to find out... 

It was pretty cool because my last show was in May so I was thirsty haha. I wanted to have a nice singalong show and I went there with no expectations at all. Not really into the new album so I showed up and just let the thing go.

TWY got on stage fastly (and) started playing without saying hello. Soupy just showed up right before the first chord, there was no presence of them before the venue opened and they were nowhere to be found...Bad point.
 
They played 5 songs from the new album and I just liked 2 of those...boring moments... But at least they played some truly great songs like Coffee Eyes, Came Out Swinging (as the last one) Melrose Diner, Don't Let Me Cave In and Washington Square Park. Those were the highlights for me, no doubt. So much emotion I just run out of voice. Man, that was passionate.

In between songs there was Soupy motivational and posi speech...talking about "you can do whatever you want if you really fight hard to achieve it even though the world will be against you" kinda stuff. Really nice and heartfelt yes, but I would have loved 2 songs more instead of him talking...

Whatever...just 12 songs...less than 45 min of music? Oh c'mon!! That was really disappointing.

Fun fact: Soupy touched his hair more then 16 times during the show. At moments he was just about to cry, red eyed and looking kind of anxious. Passion, or he just gets into the role too much? 

The sound was good and they played nice. The 3 guitar thing is unnecessary for me but...


The crowd was nice but too small...less then 50 people haha. Really sad. And there was a lot of kids who didn't know the old songs... I even yelled 'PLAY KEYSTONE STATE, KEYSTONE STATE DUDE CORE!!' two times but they looked the other way or didn't listen!

The moment they ended the set Soupy jumped offstage and vanished out the exit door. I was hoping for them to get a little bit closer to the fans but whatever haha.

I think I like the new Wonder Years song (eh, I think)

LET'S HAVE A SRS TALK ABOUT POP PUNK 

As we all know The Wonder Years used to be a really fun pop punk band, then the weight of the world fell on Soupy's shoulders and they wrote the amazing Upsides all about not fitting in, loneliness and generally whining but trying not to be so negative and figuring out wtf is going on.

It just so happens that I had left college and was in a wasteland at the time it was released and the album really resonated with me (maaan). Then I took my head out of my ass, picked myself up and started to have fun again. Unfortunately by the time TWY released Suburbia..it seemed Soupy had not gone through the same metamorphosis and the album was kind of a wet blanket. Good in places mind you but overall..meh..just not where I was..selfish of me but hey...

Now the lads have a new album on the way, (the worryingly titled) The Greatest Generation and a new song 'Passing Through a Screen Door' dropped today.

At first I was underwhelmed until DAT BRIDGE hit and suddenly I had a reason to listen to it FIVE TIMES IN A ROW. The vocals almost sound like they're being sung by a grown up now (besides the little whine of an inflection at the end of some lines) but they lyrics have always been what sucks the kidz in. And here's the thing: I'M 26 AND A LOT OF MY FRIENDS HAVE GOT MARRIED. Not many have kids though thankfully.

A lot of what I'm hearing (from Absolute Punk) is that this isn't the best song on the album and this gives me hope. Maybe I should ease up on these guys, I mean Man Overboard have the most cringe-filled lyrics of all time and I don't judge them so harshly. Then again Man Overboard didn't drop breakdowns for hipster coffee table books. The jury is still out but if I can come to terms with the Emotional Hipster Punk vibes then this might be my album of the summer, who knows?