Awesome Underground ★ Music Review: MAYDAY PARADE / GHOST TOWN / BROADSIDE: WARPED TOUR 2016 ► BAND REVIEW

Ghost Town, Mayday Parade, and Broadside are all part of the Warped Tour 2016 lineup. In this video, I review each of these bands. Mayday Parade is an American rock band from Tallahassee, Florida. Band members include Brooks Bett (rhythm guitar), Jake Bundrick (drums, percussion), Alex Garcia (lead guitar), Jeremy Lenzo (bass guitar, backing vocals), and Derek Sanders (lead vocals, piano). Ghost Town is an American electronic rock band from Los Angeles, California. Band members include: Kevin "Kevghost" McCullough (lead vocals), Alix "Alixmonster" Koochaki (guitars, backing vocals), Manny "Mannythedrummer" Dominick (drums, percussion). Broadside is a pop punk band from Richmond, Virginia. Band members include Ollie Baxxter (vocals), Niles Gregory (guitar), Dorian Enrique (guitar), Andrew Dunton (drums), and Pat Diaz (bass)

Ghost Town is a long time favorite of mine. I'll admit that their dive deeper into the rock side of things had me excited at first. But honestly, their lyrical context in their most recent album "Evolution" really let me down. The sound is great, as always. And the art is amazing as well. Ghost Town has always made songs about real life situations masked in a creepy topic, with a creepy image. The artistry is what I've always loved about this band. They are absolutely unique, and very good at what they do. And when they got signed, I got worried. I know what record labels do. They worry about making money, not about making art... because they're a business, and businesses have to make money. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see no large influence from Fueled by Ramen on "The After Party" aside from some rad promotion. This made me happy, this band I love would remain true to themselves. But with "Evolution" there are clear demographic, target audience, and gimmick influences. So much so, that the entire album is targeted directly at their core demographic. Not that I blame them for being smart in business. And I don't feel like they're less creative. I just feel like their new music isn't as much for me as their older stuff is.

Mayday Parade doesn't require a ton of explanation or elaboration from me. They're popular, and they've been around for quite some time. They have super happy songs, super sad songs, super screw you songs, you super screwed me songs.... all of the songs. Their sound is great and it stays pretty fluent without becoming dull and boring after the gazillionth album. Their newest body of work, "Black Lines" doesn't disappoint. But I have to admit that I still favor picking and choosing songs from each of their albums rather than listening to any single one of them straight through.

Broadside is a new love of mine, and thank you, Spotify for that. The Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify has really become a great friend of mine. If you know anything about me, you know that I crave hearing something new to fall in love with. This playlist is very good at delivering that to me. They're pop punk rock through and through. The only thing that I don't like about this band is something that hurts them, and not me. They need a serious lesson in branding because they are not easy to find on any forum! They seem to have done pretty well for themselves, as they have made it to being one of the advertised bands on the Warped Tour lineup. But imagine how far they could come if they had a more solid and consistent form of branding. There is no logo that I could find, they aren't straight forward with their social media links (nothing is /broadside or /broadside band) and it actually was a chore for me to find them. I was up for that challenge, but most people are far too lazy to bother. I see that they're signed to Victory Records... why isn't their label helping them out with this?!

Video Review