Review by Catherine McCauley for MPM
We arrive in Dublin on what is a miserable and extremely wet evening, however, this does not dampen our spirits (excuse the pun) as we are ready for a night of American Punk. We meet up for a drink in The Green Room with other rockers ahead of the gig.
Due to an issue with the pass we are late entering and unfortunately, miss the first three songs of Simple Plan. The 3Arena is heaving with eager concert goers excited for tonight’s entertainment. Simple Plan who formed in 1999 are a Canadian band from Montreal, Quebec. The band comprises of Pierre Bouvier (lead vocals), Chuck Comeau (Drums), Jeff Stinco (Lead Guitar), Sebastien Lefebvre (Rhythm guitar, backing vocals). Full disclosure – I knew very little about them until this evening. I was educated on the journey down by my friend Jade, who being from Toronto herself, is a huge fan. I was given a quick history and run down on the songs which I may hear tonight.
I missed ‘I’d Do Anything’, ‘Shut Up!’ and ‘Jump’, but once I entered the venue I could see and hear how successful the band were in psyching up the audience. Bouvier tells us that he is feeling jetlagged and glad to be in Ireland, he asked how many are new fans and then old fans and was humbled by the response.
They then launch into ‘Jet Lag’ and the lads are high energy and charismatic and the Dublin revellers are loving life. The lad’s songs are very catchy and anthemic with the fans singing word for word. ‘Addicted’ is a cheeky wee tune with Bouvier singing “I’m a dick” and then holding the mic out for us to sing “I’m addicted to you” and chant along with “Heartbreaker”. It was clear to see from the get go that these guys are great at engaging old and new fans alike. Comeau conducts the audience instructing us to wave our arms from behind his kit and sing along to ‘Your Love Is A Lie’. Bouvier tells us of the new documentary released by the band called “Simple Plan – The Kids in the Crowd” which I’m sure will be watched by old and new fans after tonight’s show.
‘Nothing Changes’ was well received by the crowd as the fans jump and sing along in solidarity with the band. Bouvier reflects on how its 19yrs since Simple Plan last played in Ireland, the lads genuinely seemed surprised at the amount of fans they had in attendance tonight, given the gap since the last time they had played. Given the number of Simple Plan t-shirts throughout the crowd though its evidence of how good a fan base they have here in Ireland. Bouvier led into the next song saying “welcome to the Simple Plan party/family, ‘Welcome To My Life’ followed by ‘Summer Paradise’ which saw the introduction of large Beach balls which bounded about in the 3Arena during the lads performance. Bouvier thanks us for playing with their balls before autographing the ball and throwing it back into the audience. As if the atmosphere couldn’t get any more potent the lads roll out ‘What’s New Scooby Doo?’, and stage crew dressed as Scooby Doo and Shaggy begin frantically running about on the stage whilst Scooby Snacks are thrown out into the audience.
‘Where I Belong’, and ‘I’m Just A Kid’ keep us entertained and jumping along. Stinco makes a heart with his hands facing out to the crowd whilst crossing the stage, he throws a plectrum to Bouvier who then throws it out to the front of the eager crowd. During ‘Perfect’, “Chuck” comes out from behind the kit to take a picture with the 3Arena crowd and comments on his surprise to see Canadian and Brazilian flags. Bouvier then takes the mantle on the drum kit so that Comeau can mosh in the crowd whilst Lefebvre takes over singing for Bouvier. The final song of the evening for Simple Plan is ‘Perfect’ which sees Bouvier opening the song with an acoustic guitar encouraging the crowd to create an ambience with their phone torches – the lights light up the arena from the floor to the top tier in the balcony. Bouvier then jumps in the air mid song and the rest of the Simple Plan lads kick in to finish their last song of the night as we are treated to Plumes of dry ice and paper cannons. Simple Plan say their goodbyes and depart the stage leaving the Dublin audience hungry for more.
Intermission continues with the high octane atmosphere created by the excellent Simple Plan and we are enthralled by a fully immersive experience created by dancing skeletons on the main screen and a Gorilla mask wearing individual, who runs throughout the crowd whilst being filmed and projected onto the main screen. The Gorilla then uses a canon to fire t-shirt’s out into the audience. Then a drone operated Zeppelin with LED display flies around the audience projecting images of the crowd onto the large screens, encouraged by a booming voice we are then roused to participate in ‘Booty Cam’, ‘Kiss Cam’ and ‘Fxxk You Cam’. This created an infectious buzz where everyone was participating in the hijinks and creating raucous laughter. I’ve never witnessed an interval quite like this. There was no run of the mill lull in-between bands and kudos to The Offspring and their stage crew for providing genuinely great ‘Supercharged’ fun whilst we excitedly wait for the arrival of the zany headliners. Then we see The Offspring lads behind the scenes getting ready to take to the stage and a countdown appears on the large screen.
Hailing from Garden Grove California in 1984, The Offspring are an American Punk band who over the past forty one years, have delivered contagious Punky tunes amongst rocking and emotional songs in their eleven album back catalogue. The tour is in support of their newest opus ‘Supercharged’ which was released in 2024.
This is the band’s first headlining UK tour since 2021. The band consists of Bryan ‘Dexter’ Holland (lead vocalist and guitarist), Kevin ‘Noodles’ Wasserman (lead guitarist), Todd Morse (Bass Guitar), Jonah Nimoy (multi-instrumentalist) and Brandon Pertzborn (Drums). The Offspring have successfully transferred Punk into the mainstream charts with hits such as ‘Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) and ‘Why Don’t You Get a Job’.
The band and their support have certainly drawn a real mix of ages, cultures and genres of pop and metal fans which is a pleasant sight to behold tonight in Dublin’s 3Arena. The buzz is electric and the sea is awash with various genres of t-shirt’s but unsurprisingly The Offspring attire was in the majority. The Offspring make their appearance and Dublin goes wild.
The lads launch into ‘Come Out and Play’ and the bands friend Jason “Blackball” McClean joins them onstage to perform his legendary “You gotta keep them separated” spoken line which was a cracking touch. ‘Want You Bad’ starts with an organ intro and the crowd harmonising with Holland before kicking off into the chaos of the songs tempo. , ‘Looking Out for #1’, ‘Staring at the Sun’, ‘Hit That/Original Prankster’ see the band in full swing determined to give Dublin a great time – they are succeeding thus far.
‘Bad habit’ sees Noodles ear splittingly shredding his guitar as the paper floats in the air. The Offspring then launch into ‘Ole’ and the crowd chaotically chant along. The atmosphere is electric – Noodles appears overwhelmed by Dublin’s love for the band – he jokes about “checking with headquarters for the numbers in attendance tonight, he states it’s a world record of over a million, a choir of earthbound angels”.
The band are enamoured to see kids up the front declaring how there is a spark and twinkle of mischievousness from kids in the front row –the kids were cast onto the large screens. Everyone is unified tonight through the love of Punk and The Offspring. “Fuck Yes Dublin” says Noodles as Dexter agrees “how about this place” – “so good to be back, this is the only town where someone is gonna hold up a sign that says “pints after”?”. The devotion of the audience who dressed up as the Pretty Fly guy with 31 tattoos and The Offspring tattoos amazed the lads.
The covers segment begins with Noodles playing the Intro to ‘Electric Funeral’ (Black Sabbath cover) he then quips ‘that’s as much as I know I’ve crippling ADHD’. Noodles praise his bandmate Dexter for all his accomplishments from training as a Pilot, completing a PHD and owning his own Hot Sauce Company. Holland receives this praise humbly prior to Dexter leaving for a ‘Pee break’. The solidarity and camaraderie between the band is sincere and heart-warming. Noodles proceeds to introduce the rest of the band, Dr Todd Morris as ubiquitously handsome, Dr of positivity Brandon Pertzborn and describes Dr Johnny Nimoy as having crippling OCD.
The band play short snippets of ‘Paranoid’ (Black Sabbath cover), ‘Crazy Train’ (Ozzy Osbourne cover) which were a fitting tribute to the Prince of Darkness, and ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ (Edvard Grieg cover) which they recorded for the 2021 album ‘Let the Bad Times Roll’. ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ (Ramones cover) sees the Irish crowd explode as the mosh pits intensify and the crowd jump and sing along with glee. The Gorilla masked character reappears dashing about the stage with sign saying ‘SEDATED’ riling everyone up more.
I’m not usually a fan of drum solo’s however, Pertzborn is a machine on the drums, he’s an exceedingly talented musician and a pleasure to watch. The poignant ‘Gone Away’ was beautifully introduced by Dexter on a white Piano at the front of the stage, with the Irish audience singing along using arms and phone torches to provide a unified atmosphere – the tempo changes with the band joining their brother on stage accompanied by pyro techniques. ‘Hey Jude’ (The Beatles cover) performed with Dexter remaining on piano had the older fans amongst us chanting away in unison with the finishing lines of ‘Na na na nannana’ – goose bump moment for sure.
The Offspring decided to change to tempo a little by delivering ‘Why Don’t You Get A Job’ and ‘Pretty Fly’ (For a White Guy). Inflated characters from the music video were dotted across this stage as the videographers zoomed in on the crowd dressed as the infamous character and these were projected onto the large screen. More paper canons exploded with coloured streamers during the performance. The chaos continued with the guitar shredding intro of ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’ the floor of the 3Arena was bouncing as the Mosh Pits were on fire.
The Offspring left the stage for the obligatory Encore – hell these lads have more than earned a wee breather before returning to the stage as ‘Let the Bad Times Roll’ (Played from Tape) followed by ‘You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid’ which saw the Zeppelin reappear with ‘Dance Fucker Dance’ appear on the LED screen and float around the Arena.
Dublin’s 3Arena nearly drowned out the lads singing to the final track of the night, ‘Self Esteem’. Morse’s iconic bass line rumbled throughout the arena matched only by the intensity of Pertzborn’s Drums as clips of original video played on the large screen. Tonight was a night for fans to dance, jump and sing along to the soundtrack of their youth whilst watching younger fans enjoy it every bit as much.
The Offspring brought what truly was a Savage performance full of Fun and Amusement. Despite their 40+ years of performing these lads still entertain like they did when they launched in 1984. This was a completely mesmerising experience, one which we shall not forget about ever.
Photography by Eamonn Smyth for MPM
