Live Review: Simple Plan, Tonight Alive

Perth may have missed out on the first Australian Vans Warped tour but one band did make the effort to visit our humble abode for an exclusive one-off headline show. The last time Simple Plan trekked it to the West Coast was in 2005, eight years ago, and it was clear that the French-Canadians' prime might have passed them by.

Rewind the years to an age where pop-punk was more accepted and the world wasn't invaded by the alternative fashion-driven indie rock scene. This was the outfit that inhabited Challenge Stadium on this night.

Pop punkers Tonight Alive warmed the crowd, with lead singer Jenna McDougall flaunting florescent green hair and accompanied by backwards cap-wearing band members aching to strum their power chords. A lesson to be learned by the blossoming singer is to not anticipate the crowd will sing along. Her consistent pausing for the mosh to scream the lyrics out, when it was evident not many were able to join in, left an abyss of awkward silence.

The moment Simple Plan's Pierre Bouvier opened his mouth and released his memorable nasal-toned voice it was clear that these bad boys, although aged, still own their pop-punk teen angst sound. I'd Do Anything, a track from the lads' first album No Pads, No Helmets... Just Balls, opened the show.

Admittedly, Simple Plan are not the most skilled in musicality; what they lacked needed to be made up for with gimmicks, crowd flattery, crotch-grabbing, a bucket load of repeated “whoa” interludes and bass player David Desrosiers' continuous sexual innuendoes. Desperate Desrosiers invited women to shower with him after the show, garnering surprised facial expressions from his fellow band members.

The memorable and recognisable riffs for Addicted, Welcome To My Life, Astronaut, Your Love Is A Lie and Shut Up! all induced the punters to applaud and scream in adoration. Tonight Alive's Jenna McDougall joined SP onstage to sing the Natasha Bedingfield part of Jet Lag, showing off her developed upper register. A hacked party medley of cover songs including Moves Like Jagger, Dynamite and Sexy And I Know It proved the group's need to beef up their performance to keep the crowd happy.

A welcomed encore featured Lucky One, from SP's new EP Get Your Heart On – The Second Coming!, performed acoustically. It's the kind of love song that commercial radio will no doubt happily loop till your ears bleed.

Closing on infamous track Perfect, this wasn't a rave-worthy show; however, for the seasoned fans who grew up on this music, it was an uplifting journey down memory lane.