Band: Angels and Airwaves
Date: May 29, 2010
Venue: The Hollywood Palladium
City: Los Angeles, CA
Angels and Airwaves
Photos by Nicolas Bates
Written by Nicolas Bates
On the second to last stop of their “Love” tour, and almost back home to San Diego, Angels and Airwaves played the Hollywood Palladium on May 29th 2010.
Before Angels and Airwaves hit the stage, the crowd grew impatient as they were blasted with copious amounts of fog from the fog machines and yelled the likes of, “C’mon, already!” and “Let’s go!” before Angels and Airwaves’ set commenced promptly at 9 PM. An eclectic crowd, one that contained teenage girls and boys, but also adults over 30, greeted the band with immense anticipation. It has been 2 years since the band has last toured through LA, and that was evident judging from the crowd’s excitement.
The lighting heavily doused the band in dark blues, heavy reds and greens throughout the set. It worked extremely well with the fog and Angels and Airwaves’ atmospheric and airy music. The astronomy theme that is touched on so much was not lost.
The set consisted of mostly of songs from the latest release, “Love”. Songs like “The Flight of Apollo”, “Hallucinations” and “Shove”. However, they also played songs off “I-Empire” and “We Don’t Need to Whisper”. Songs like “Everything’s Magic”, “Love Like Rockets”, and “Lifeline”. The crowd seemed to thoroughly enjoy these older tracks, even jumping up and down and clapping during “Lifeline”.
Atom Willard’s drumming was spectacular. He is a very hard hitting, yet, precise drummer who can play along to click tracks all day, it seems. He truly is the backbone of this band. David Kennedy, who is also in Box Car racer with Tom DeLonge, adds great energy to the band and the stage. He, as well as Tom, were all over the place all night – always fun to watch. Matt Wachter, ex 30 Seconds to Mars bassist, provided some of the best backing vocals I have ever heard. Crystal clear, perfect tone and great projection accompanied every word out of his mouth. Both David and Matt tended to synths here and there throughout the set, as well. Tom’s energy was enormous the entire set, and he bounced back and forth from playing guitar and vocals, to just vocals, where he was really able to frequent all parts of the stage. Tom DeLonge was very intimate with the crowd, and on more than one occasion, walked to the far side of stage left and right to shake hands and touch fans’ hands.
Angels and Airwaves was very well perceived at the Hollywood Palladium and put on great show, especially knowing it was their second to last stop on this long tour. Many people might think Tom put this band together for the wrong reasons, but when you watch them play, you know his, and everyone else’s hearts are sincerely in it.