Author Archives: Dominika

Pierre, Jeff and Seb do push-ups to raise awareness about autism

AUTHOR: Dominika | 1. May 2017 | no comments

Some members of Simple Plan recently joined in on the effort of Jay Dallstream, who they met throughout the course of the NPNHJB tour in the U.S., who by doing 1000 push-ups every day in April is trying to raise awareness about autism and raise money to help provide resources for autistic children.

The challenge entitled “Drop and Gimme 20” encourages people to record themselves doing as many push-ups as they can and spread the word about autism. Jay Dallstream has already raised over $1000 on his GoFundMe page, which has a goal to reach $10 000 within the next month.

Below, you can check out the three videos already posted by Sebastien, Pierre and his wife Lachelle and Jeff with his his daughters Zoé and Maya and his girlfriend Michèle:

Jeff and Seb meet with Montreal’s mayor and discuss plans to create jobs for local youth

AUTHOR: Dominika | 29. April 2017 | 2 comments

Once again, Simple Plan are stepping in to create a positive change in their community. Jeff Stinco and Sebastien Lefebvre met up this morning once again with the mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre in order to announce at a press conference more detail about the Municipal Plan for Employment the Simple Plan Foundation is involved in in cooperation with the city of Montreal and the Union Des Municipalités du Québec. According to the Simple Plan Foundation, 50 cities in Quebec have already pledged their support of this plan.

The goal of the plan, put together by Chuck’s father, André Comeau, is to ensure summer jobs to young people, mostly just transitioning from youth centers, who have been through rough times and otherwise would have found it very hard to get into the work environment. Read below Jeff’s full description of this project that Simple Plan Foundation is involved in:

“This morning, Seb, Montreal Mayor extraordinaire, Denis Coderre and I spoke about a plan (that we started 4 years ago) that Chuck’s dad, André Comeau, put together and that we (through the Simple Plan Foundation) support: cities across Quebec are creating summer jobs for kids transitioning from Youth Centers. It’s quite a mouth full and there’s a lot of people involved but basically, we are making sure that jobs are being offered to kids who had a rough patch and want to get their shit together. It’s 100% amazing and Denis Coderre went from offering 15 jobs last year to 38 this year: that’s what I call real political action. We want mayors across Quebec to do the same as him. Our goal is to create 300 jobs every summer for these kids who are ready for a change. Let’s stop talking about potholes and applaud the good things happening in Montreal.”

– Jeff Stinco –

By clicking on the image below, you can check out a picture of Jeff and Seb with Denis Coderre from this morning:

Rock Im Park (feat. Simple Plan) sold-out!

AUTHOR: Dominika | 29. April 2017 | no comments

If you were thinking about seeing Simple Plan on the last day of the German festival Rock Im Park and still didn’t get your ticket, I’m sorry to say you’re out of luck now! Day 3 of the festival, on June 4th is now officially sold-out (thanks Mo for the information).

The whole festival takes place from June 2nd to June 4th and all festival and Day 3 day tickets are now gone. The only tickets left are day tickets for days 1 and 2, however Simple Plan will not be performing on those days.

If you’re in Germany around that time, it’s still possible to purchase tickets for Rock Am Ring (June 2nd) and also for the headlining Simple Plan shows in Berlin and Hamburg in May. Find out all about upcoming SP shows in the Tour section.

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SPIN magazine named ‘I’d Do Anything’ one of 21 best pop-punk choruses of 21st century!

AUTHOR: Dominika | 29. April 2017 | no comments

The renowned music magazine, now websize, SPIN, has recently released a list of 21 best pop-punk choruses of the 21st century. And of course, Simple Plan were featured on the list as well with their song ‘I’D Do Anything’ on number 19. Besides SP, the list also features songs by artists such as Jimmy Eat World, The 1975, Paramore or My Chemical Romance.

Read below what the editor Jordan Sargent of SPIN had to say about this classic track by Simple Plan from their debut album, which came out 15 years ago.

“The Canadian band Simple Plan stepped into pop-punk stardom with perhaps the genre’s most quintessential album title—No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls—which emphasized two very important things: they were boys, but not popular athletes. As such, “I’d Do Anything” made sense as the album’s biggest hit, a loser’s plea to an unnamed girl to recognize that he, really, is the perfect one for her. “I’d do anything / Just to hold you in my arms” it went, in a perfect ascending adolescent whine, and driven by an encouraging guitar riff that seems to say, “Hey man, maybe you have a chance.” Ha.”

– Jordan Sargent (SPIN magazine) –

1 month till Simple Plan’s European NPNHJB tour: what can we expect?

AUTHOR: Dominika | 28. April 2017 | no comments

Precisely one month from now, Simple Plan will make their grand return to Europe (after a whole year) and start the European leg of their 15th anniversary No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls tour here. After the grand success of the U.S. leg of this very nostalgic tour, we can already tell that the European fans are clearly in for a big treat!

Let’s look at all the things we can look forward to on the old continent in May and June:

Opening bands

It has become sort of a tradition for Simple Plan lately not to take just one band on tour with them, but rather two, or even more! The latter will be the case in Europe, as Simple Plan are taking five bands in total to open for them in Europe: The Bottom Line, Mallory Knox, Milestones, Four Years Strong and Trashboat. But don’t freak out! You won’t have to sit through all five bands before SP hit the stage as not every opening band will be present at every show!

The most “stable” opening band of them all is Mallory Knox, who will be present at all European dates except for London, UK. Make sure to check out the Tour section to find out which bands are opening at the shows you are attending!

Setlist

If the U.S. NPNHJB tour has let us in on something, it’s the setlist. On the shows that are a part of their NPNHJB tour, Simple Plan play their whole first record No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls from start to finish, with a little addition of ‘Grow Up’ right before ‘Perfect’. After that, the band returns with an encore filled with a nice mix of songs from all of their other albums. The whole Simple Plan set lasts about 90 minutes. You can check out the full setlist here.

The question remains whether the band plans to change up their setlist for the European tour a little bit or not. We’ve previously heard they might include ‘Vacation’ on the setlist eventually. Will it happen in Europe?

Festivals… and their setlist

However, don’t expect to hear the whole No Pads album live if you’re attending any of the festival dates on this European tour. Due to the nature of festivals, who’s audience is not always strictly one band’s fandom and also given the shorter time on stage (usually around 45 minutes), it was obvious for Simple Plan to make the decision not to include these events into their official NPNHJB tour. Instead, the crowds at Rock Am Ring (Germany), Rock Im Park (Germany), Download festival (UK), Aerodrome Festival (Czech Rep.) and Nova Rock (Austria) will be treated with a setlist that features all of the band’s major hits that every single person in the audience can enjoy. It’s very possible this setlist will be fairly similar or even identical to the ones to the festival setlists used last year (most recently in Peru, December 2016) – check it out in our Setlist section.

On-stage shenanigans

It wouldn’t be a Simple Plan show, if there wasn’t any surprise there in store for the fans. Whether it’s Chuck stagediving during ‘Grow Up’, Pierre throwing his guitar in ‘Perfect’, inflatable balls being thrown into the audience during ‘Summer Paradise’, party medleys at festivals, David’s innuendos… and according to videos and photos from the recent U.S. NPNHJB tour – lots of dabbing too, apparently. There won’t be a dull moment of the show, that’s for sure.

Merch

Those of you who would like to leave the show with a souvenir or two, don’t forget to visit the merch table and get yourself some of the new t-shirt designs, some of which were designed specifically for the NPNHJB tour! Besides the t-shirts you could have seen on the U.S. tour – which also feature the limited edition of the old Role Model t-shirts, there will also be a special European edition of the tour t-shirt, which is always one of the best-sellers.

More updates

And of course as this is SimplePlan.cz’s continent, you can expect lots and lots of news, photos, videos and surprises from this particular tour. I will be present in Berlin, Hamburg, London and Prague, so expect extensive recaps of those shows. Also.. there may be another interview in the works :)

The remaining shows of the tour will be covered with the help of other fans – so if you want to be one of them and share your thoughts, experience, photos etc. from the shows, just contact SimplePlan.cz after the show with some tidbits you found interesting. I’m sure that fans you can’t attend your show will be very grateful for all that info.

And last but not the least, if you haven’t heard of the SimplePlan.cz pins, the 2.0 version is now in stock and I will be giving them away on this tour as well as organizing more scavenger hunts for them in various European cities (more continents coming soon, I promise)! Make sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to find out where to find them! :)