Show Review Crush: Paper Route and Paramore at House of Blues 10/19

I feel like a lot of the shows we end up recommending and reviewing on Boston Band Crush are in support of the little guy - the local bands, the ones passing through, the bands we love or want you to love that aren't on the radio on your drive to work and don't have their new single's video on TRL (does TRL still exist? I have lots of vivid memories of running home from school in eighth grade to watch Carson Daly tell me what was hip and cool before it was hip and cool to not care about what Carson Daly told us was hip and cool).

But I like seeing bands that are popular, that are on the radio, that do appear on MTV -- that I still like.

Which is why I wanted to see Paramore.

Paper Route and Paramore came to the House of Blues on Monday. I appeared at the venue with lots of scalpers muddling, "Need a ticket? Need a ticket?" under their breath as I passed, a "PARAMORE IS SOLD OUT," print-out on the ticket vendors window. And I was surprised (but then, maybe I shouldn't've been) to see how many men and women in their 30s gushing, clutching one another as they entered HoB, saying, "Oh god, we're about to see Paramore!"

I was also surprised to note how many parents were in the crowd (though, again, maybe I shouldn't've been). A good quarter of the audience were moms and dads on the outskirts of the mess of people, patiently waiting for under-aged sons and daughters to be finished enjoying themselves, not allowing their children to go to a concert alone. It had been a very long time since I'd been to a show like that.

But this crowd screamed for Paper Route, a band I'd never heard of but seemed to be popular. Also, I like the name "Paper Route." I do. It's cute. And maybe I'm just caught up being a writing student in an MFA program, but the symbolic notions of the name were striking.

And the boys in Paper Route were cuter than their band name. I'll come right out and say it - phew, they're good looking men that made my heart a-flutter - heaven help the 13-year-old girl with her mom waiting for her in the back of the crowd. They sort of looked like an Urban Outfitters catalog in tight button-up shirts and v-neck tee shirts.

The music? Not so much my cup of tea. Though lots of girls screamed from the gigantic crowd, I couldn't seem to feel their version of mellow vocals meeting heavy dance beats (I will admit - thedrummer was amazing, keeping time [I think] without a drum machine). I have to give them credit, though, for sticking an accordion in what should've been a dance rock song. And a xylophone. And rocking out two drum kits and an electric drum kit all at once. The one song I really, really loved, though, was a dance rock tune called, "Tiger Teeth" - and only then did I realize I liked it so much because it felt like they were ripping off Panic at the Disco.

But hey. I'm willing to admit that maybe I'm just a jaded little girl who goes to too many shows. Because the whole crowd - and I'm talking about maybe 85 percent of the crowd - even the dudes (dare I say Bromance?) - clapped along and bounced a foot to Paper Route. They aren't a bad band - they were simply not my preference. They didn't deliver. (get it! Paper Route! "Deliver!" ...Anyway.)

After Paper Route, the audience erupted when the roadies and crew began rolling out Paramore's set-up before they took stage. This crowd truly had a pulse or an electricity - it was a vibe you can only sometimes feel from a sold-out crowd wanting very much to hear their favorite band of the moment.

And when they took stage, holy shit, Haley Williams' classically orange hair was bleached blond.

I can remember talking with friends back before Paramore was OH MY GOD IT'S PARAMORE, back before it was cool to not like them because they were on the radio, back when they were just beginning to get air time. Rumors swirled that the band was talking about breaking up because Williams was getting more press than the rest of the band because she was, well, a cute girl and the singer. Like I said - rumors, but still. I really wanted to look at Paramore as a band and not simply as Haley Williams and her back-up boys.

It was difficult. Williams controls the stage for the most part and the boys seem to let her, very rarely interacting with one another or her or the crowd. I watched Williams head bang to her songs, even skank around the stage, interacting with the crowd, thrusting her mic at them while they sang along to choruses.

Where was the rest of Paramore? They're obviously a very tight band, they sound an awful lot like their recordings, and they brought the Rock and the Roll. But something about them seemed un-unified - and it wasn't the music.

The crowd, though, didn't care about that. There were people in that audience that sang along to every song, to songs you knew they'd played on repeat because they identified with the lyrics - and a lot of the appeal of Paramore, to me, is the lyrics, the unabashed admissions and honesty. The crowd felt that, was happy to hear their favorite songs live, and maybe that should be enough.