The final four shows of the first leg of Simple Plan’s European tour, which kicked off at the end of February, took place in the United Kingdom. In the past week, Simple Plan visited four British cities – Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester and London – where they played for thousands of enthusiastic fans.
Simple Plan kicked the British part of the tour on Sunday in Bristol, where they played for about 2500 people at the O2 Academy. At this show, the band performed their usual setlist, playing Your Love Is A Lie, I Refuse, Nostalgic and This Song Saved My Life for the interchangable songs [see the tour setlist for more info on the songs Simple Plan change up during their shows]. A couple of pictures from the show in Bristol can be seen here.
I rejoined the tour for the final three shows, so I managed to get you a lot more stuff from the last three days of the tour. The guys had a day off in Nottingham, where some of them decided to walk around the sights and just relax. The show took place in Rock City (no relation to R. City), one of the bigger venues of this tour with a capacity of 2450 people. Interestingly, a vast majority of the crowd that night were men, which isn’t a very common thing for Simple Plan shows. And as the Nottingham setting is crucial to the legends of Robin Hood, lots of jokes were made on that account throughout the whole day along with plenty of jokes regarding the British accent. Setlist once again changed a little bit from the Bristol one – the guys played Your Love Is A Lie, Kiss Me Like Nobody’s Watching (instead of I Refuse), Nostalgic and Astronaut (instead of TSSML). After the show, Pierre and David both came out to check out The Bottom Line’s (of the opening bands) traditional acoustic set for the fans.
Check out my photos from the soundcheck and the show in the gallery:
The next day, on Wednesday, Simple Plan headed to the quite close city of Manchester, where they were to play the O2 Ritz venue. Since the tour bus parked right in front of the venue, where the fans were lining up, all band members kept showing up here and there, at one point filming a video featuring Jeff and fans for local promo [see a picture from the filming here]. The guys were all in an exceptionally mood that day during soundcheck, which I considered one of the best ones (that I know of) of the tour. Simple Plan kicked off the show around 9pm and again did some changed to their setlist by playing Your Love Is A Lie, I Refuse, Farewell and TSSML. According to Jeff, this show was one of the top 3 shows of the tour at that point (beside Prague and Hamburg). Check out the photos below:
And finally on Thursday the guys got back to the capital city – London, where they were welcomed by quite traditional rainy weather at the O2 Forum Kentish Town venue. Pierre made an exception for the final day of the tour and while usually he tried not to attend soundchecks (to save his voice), after the guys ended their soundcheck set, he appeared on the stage, greeted with loud cheers from the fans in the audience. All the bands and also the very very loud crowd gave it the best they could for the final show of the tour and it is rightfully being called the best show of the UK part of the tour by both the band and the fans (meaning it was quite possibly one of the top 3 shows of the tour). Simple Plan kept their Manchester setlist for London, so no changes there. Simple Plan also didn’t forget to thank the crew and their opening bands for a wonderful tour that will surely be remembered by many. Both Pierre and Chuck also supported their opening band The Bottom Line by wearing either their merch or the merch of the upcoming charitable Teddy Rocks festival, co-organised by Tom from TBL, which raises funds to help fight children’s cancer. See the pictures of the show in London and soundcheck in the gallery:
Throughout the whole day, the guys took over Kerrang’s Instagram profile (plus their own Instagrams), which is also why we have quite the number of backstage shots from London available in the gallery – including Chuck’s and Pierre’s “pregnancy” announcement or a full bands & crew picture from the stage in London:
And finally, during the show in London, just like at the past couple of shows, the guys from the two opening bands and their crew all jumped up on stage during Simple Plan’s party medley, once again revealing they were wearing nothing but Simple Plan’s new underwear line. Here’s a video I took of this hilarious moment of the final night of the tour: