Of Mice & Men and Young Guns at Gramercy Theatre on September 16th, 2016
>> It’s a tall order to open for a pillar of the scene at their album release show. It’s an even taller order if you’re not a New York darling and instead hopped across an ocean from London. But in a scene not known for an easy in—I witnessed a girl in line livid about someone “wearing a Three Days Grace shirt at an Of Mice & Men show”—
Young Guns were received with open arms and clapping hands. They managed to stitch up the space between uplifting radio jam and throw down rock song and win over everyone in the crowd, from the boy in the Lady Gaga jean jacket to the heavy metal kids with plugs the size of quarters in their earlobes. Young Guns stunned with their authenticity and vivacity, and easily could have stood on their own as a headlining act.
>> As for
Of Mice & Men, there were, as always, the outcries of selling out on Facebook and the complaints of going soft on Twitter. But that didn’t stop the band from winning every heart in the room. This is a band that knows how to tap into and fully harness the complete spectrum of human emotion and uses that power for good. Even the parents in the back had a hard time keeping their feet on the ground. If you’ve written off
Cold World without hearing it through, I implore you to sit and listen to the album just once—it’s a record made with love and honesty and it deserves to be listened to with open ears and open hearts.
