Turbinenhalle, Oberhausen, Germany9th November 2024
Jimmy Eat World - “EU & UK Tour” - Support: Pup
It has been five years since the release of JIMMY EAT WORLD’s latest studio album. During the pandemic, the US Rock band from Arizona released recordings of three online concerts with the ‘Phoenix Sessions’, but the quartet has not released any new material in the form of an album since their last long-player ‘Surviving’. Nevertheless, the band has not been completely inactive in recent years. The men led by singer Jim Adkins have indeed resumed their live activities since the end of the lockdown and so they are touring as hard as ever to present the songs from their ten albums. We had the pleasure of attending their third and final gig in Germany, in Oberhausen to be precise.
Pup
The Canadian Punk Rock band PUP opened the evening at 8 pm sharp. PUP are four school friends who got together as a band in 2010 and still pay homage to punk rock in the same line-up today. In the following forty minutes, the quartet rocked their way through their four-album discography and performed a colourful mix of these long-players. They gave a wide berth to quieter tracks and pushed hard on the gas pedal throughout the performance. PUP didn’t let themselves be irritated by the bad sound at the beginning and did their thing hard as nails. Fortunately, the sound got better during the set and so the fans in the sold-out Turbinenhalle also enjoyed the passionate support act.
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Light: 7
Sound: 5
Total: 7 / 10
Jimmy Eat World
The changeover time between the two acts of the evening was pleasingly short, and so JIMMY EAT WORLD took to the stage shortly after 9pm. ‘Pain’ and ‘Just Tonight...’ opened the evening. Two songs that both come from the now 20-year-old album ‘Futures’. This fast-paced introduction was followed by ‘If You Don’t, Don’t’ and ‘Sweetness’, two songs from the direct predecessor album ‘Bleed American’ from 2001. And what became apparent during the first four songs was confirmed as the evening progressed: The focus of the setlist was not on the most recent albums, which JIMMY EAT WORLD regularly released every two to three years until 2019, but on the two albums ‘Futures’ and ‘Bleed American’, with which the rock band really became commercially successful at the time. Two albums with highlight after highlight. Two albums that are very popular among JIMMY EAT WORLD fans.
‘Something Loud’, one of the very few new songs that singer Jim Adkins has written in the last few years after the last album, broke through the phalanx of songs from the hit albums and showed that JIMMY EAT WORLD still produce good songs. And immediately afterwards, ‘Your House’ was the first time that things got a lot quieter, which had a direct impact on the atmosphere in the Turbinenhalle. As the evening progressed, the quartet (joined on stage by keyboardist/guitarist Robin Vining) left their two favourite albums for a short period and went further back in time to present two albums from their album ‘Clarity’ with ‘Lucky Denver Mint’ and ‘Goodbye Sky Harbor’, and with ‘555’ and ‘All The Way (Stay’), their last studio album ‘Surviving’ was actually briefly touched on.
Otherwise, the fans in the sold-out Turbinenhalle were certainly waiting for what was to be a simply phenomenal finale in the last third of the evening: with ‘Nothingwrong’, ‘Blister’, ‘23’, ‘Bleed American’, ‘A Praise Chorus’, ‘The Middle’ and, in the encore, ‘Night Drive’ and ‘The World You Love’, JIMMY EAT WORLD performed their absolute greatest hits one after the other. What an unbelievably great sequence of great hits. The atmosphere was now clearly at its peak. Some fans let themselves be carried through the hall on the hands of other fans. The band was celebrated and JIMMY EAT WORLD were clearly enjoying the atmosphere in Oberhausen.
Even without or perhaps precisely because JIMMY EAT WORLD have no current album to promote, the evening in the Turbinenhalle developed into an absolute home game for the Americans. With such strong songs in their luggage, the concert was a sure-fire success. The evening could only have been better if the band had performed two or three more songs to reach more than just 90 minutes of playing time. And the five men on stage could have been a little more dynamic. Jim Adkins and his colleagues all remained quite static and simply didn’t move from their spots. No matter, it was one of the best concerts of 2024, that’s for sure.
Setlist
01. Pain
02. Just Tonight...
03. If You Don’t, Don’t
04. Sweetness
05. Something Loud
06. Your House (2007 Version)
07. Lucky Denver Mint
08. Big Casino
09. All the Way (Stay)
10. Goodbye Sky Harbor
11. 555 (Jim Adkins solo acoustic)
12. Hear You Me
13. Work
14. Nothingwrong
15. Blister
16. 23
17. Bleed American
18. A Praise Chorus
19. The Middle
20. Night Drive
21. The World You Love
Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 8
Light: 8
Sound: 8
Total: 8.5 / 10
All Pictures by André Wilms
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