WATERPARKS: The boys are back in Birmingham

Well, not ‘boys’ really, but if you know, you know. Waterparks headlined the O2 Institute in Birmingham on Friday night, their last UK date of their promo tour for their latest album, Greatest Hits. This is their first show back in Birmingham since they filmed their tour film here back in January 2020.

There was no support act to hype the crowd up beforehand, but they didn’t need it. The crowd were belting out lyrics from the pre-show playlist before drummer, Otto Wood, appeared on stage followed closely with lead guitarist, Geoff Wigington performing album title “Greatest Hits” while the crowd were fully fanatical.

Into “Magnetic”, lead singer, Awsten Knight made his appearance to the stage – not hard to miss with his multi-coloured hair matching his equally vibrant stage presence and personality that is absolutely enamouring.

They then performed a few singles off the album – “Numb”, “Lowkey As Hell”, and crowd favourite “Like It”.

However, they managed to venture off the original set list and go into a mini acoustic set, the band summoning to the crowd’s plea for older songs. They performed snippets from their old songs, from their debut album, “Double Dare” and asked the fans to sing as loud as they could to the choruses (mainly at Awsten’s request as he repeated that he loves hearing the British accents and ad libs).

“We’re playing favourites tonight! You guys already won,” the frontman told the crowd as they chanted for more. “I don’t give into peer pressure easily… Wait, you wanna listen to “American Graffiti”? OK, cool, this one’s called “American Graffiti”.” He continued as the intro to the song started filling the venue.

As always, Waterparks delivered a really outstanding set; the music, the set, the energy, their overall stage presence; completely unmistakeable. Truly one of the best shows I’ve ever been to!