Embarking on a co-headline UK tour with The Wonder Years, Mayday Parade brought all the emo favourites to London’s Troxy.

Whoever said ‘two is better than one’ clearly never encountered pop punk giants Mayday Parade. Formed in sunny Florida over 13 years ago through the coalescence of two separate bands, the group have since released six studio albums, the latest of which, Sunnyland, was delivered last summer. In support of this, they decided to tour the UK with The Wonder Years in a series of headlining shows that ended at Troxy.

Much to the delight of the audience, they played plenty of old favourites, with a generous sprinkling of the new. Already at three songs in, the crowd was a mesh of limbs entangled as crowd surfers wasted no time, instantaneously compelled by the quintet’s every note, every beat, and every line.

In a throwback to their best-selling debut album, A Lesson In Romantics, they roused the crowd with Black Cat and Jamie All Over, while ballads Miserable At Best and Stay saw frontman Derek Sanders take to the keys for a change of pace, evoking tears from long-time fans.

And like icing on the cake (if cake was to be had mid-meal), the band paid a tribute to emo in their acoustic medley of covers of New Found Glory’s My Friends Over You, I’m Not Okay (I Promise) by My Chemical Romance, and Taking Back Sunday’s Cute Without the ‘E’ (Cut from the Team), shortly after which came their take on 2011 earworm, Gotye’s Somebody The I Used To Know.

Needless to say, they had every single person in the room under their thumbs from start to finish, and with any luck, we won’t have to wait long to see them again.

Photos: Abigail Shii