Live Review: Jimmy Eat World, The Sinking Teeth

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of their seminal album, Futures, Jimmy Eat World brought their extensive Australian tour to Hobart on Saturday night. The crowd numbers were perhaps down on what might have been anticipated for an international band visiting the oft-neglected city, but what was lacking in numbers was made up for by enthusiasm – a case of quality over quantity.

The Sinking Teeth took to the stage pretty early, with audience members just starting to dribble in after a refreshing afternoon at the International Beer Fest. Describing themselves as ‘puke punk’ the Melbourne three-piece were actually pretty clean-cut in their overall sound, blending pop melodies with scratchy vocals, similar to that of Gyroscope with a little hint of You Am I thrown in for fun. It was a nice way to kick off and get the fans prepared for what was to come.

Jimmy Eat World is one of those bands that actually sound better live than recorded. Frontman Jim Adkins gives you every second of his time; rather than going for effortless cool, he’s all about the effort, the hard work and the determination to give every song every ounce of energy he has. Despite being surrounded by a crowd perhaps on the edge of its youth, the band made sure everyone was instantly transported to the day when they first heard singles like Pain from back in 2004. Just when most thought the pop-punk veterans would need to call it a night, they whipped out a few more well-crafted heartfelt tunes that would put most bands of the same genre to shame.

By the time the second encore rolled around most were happily content with the stellar show so far. Once the first few bars of Bleed American cranked out though, there was a surge of energy and it was suddenly 2001, crowd-surfers’ legs flying everywhere, and it sounded more like a stadium crowd singing every word rather than the few hundred dedicated fans at The Uni Bar.

No one left disappointed. They’re probably still mopping up the carnage from the stage. Wrapping up with the classic anthem The Middle gave everyone the overwhelming feeling they’d just witnessed something like seeing a unicorn – not sure if it was real, but damned happy you were there to witness it.