Saw Sum 41 for the first time, felt miserable

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water
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Saw Sum 41 for the first time, felt miserable

Post by water »

So I went to the Kansas City show last night and had my still-beating heart ripped from my chest.

I had never seen Sum 41 live before, and a big reason for that is because I'm less into seeing Motivation and Fat Lip and more into seeing DTLI/Chuck songs. I finished grad school recently, and just a few days after I found out I passed my comprehensive exam, the band announced that they were going to be doing songs from Chuck, they were doing a 2 hour set, and it was going to be "their heaviest set list". Chuck is without a doubt my favorite Sums album, if not one of my favorites of all time; how could I miss it?

I was pretty excited, but still a little hesitant. They were playing three hours away in a different state, tickets were pretty expensive (around $40-45 dollars each after fees), and I'm not exactly flush with cash. To make sure it was worth it, I didn't actually buy the tickets until Wednesday, after they had played two shows and the setlists for both showed Open Your Eyes, I'm Not the One, Angels with Dirty Faces, and 88 (the whole song not just tacking the breakdown onto Motivation). Considering these were literally my favorite Sums songs and I probably wouldn't get to hear them again, I bought the tickets, I was ready to make the drive, and this was going to be my big present to myself for finishing school.

The week of the show I needed to grab an oil change to make sure my car didn't have any problems on the way there; long story short, this ended up having to be the morning of the show, and turned into an oil change, two car jumps, and a new battery that I didn't even realize I needed. I spent 7am-2pm of Friday stuck in a Walmart auto center dropping almost $300 because the thought of missing the only chance I'd get to hear these songs I spent $90 to see live was enough to kill me.

After all the bullshit, I'm able to make it to the show and get there for Sum 41 and their massive, heavy, 2 hour Chuck setlist. It was an absolute joke.

The set had a half hour completely gutted from it compared to the tour's first two shows, they spent all night talking about Chuck but only played four songs (WATB, No Reason, Welcome to Hell, and Pieces. I'm not counting the 30 seconds of Bitter End they stick onto Motivation), three of them singles I would've heard at any show. Their "heaviest setlist yet" featured With Me, Underclass Hero, Never There, and the fucking Queen cover (if you're cutting a setlist short this should be the first thing to go). All the Chuck songs I broke my back to make sure I could see were nowhere to be found. When Fat Lip played I felt like I was violently yanked from a dream five minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off, standing straight up as people moshed around me, looking around the venue thinking "This can't really be it." Any hype or positive emotion from the rest of the show was instantly drained, and that's how I felt for the rest of the night.

I haven't used this forum in years (couldn't even remember my username), but I couldn't think of anywhere else to post my experience. It was an awful night, I spent three hours driving home depressed and quiet. The day after I'm still pretty depressed about it. I don't think I've ever left a show feeling bad, but I last night I left feeling angry, confused, and disappointed. This was the one thing I was able to get myself to celebrate a big deal, I shelled out so much time and money just so I could even be there, the setlists posted by the band made this look like an easy win, but the show wasn't anything they said it would be. I can definitely say this is the last time I'll be seeing them live, I just hope I don't feel this way every time I listen to their music.
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Re: Saw Sum 41 for the first time, felt miserable

Post by Iam The Ghost »

It's sad you had a bad experience, but I can't really sympathize with you. I mean, if you only wanted to hear 3-4 songs, why did you go to a concert which is far away from you and expensive for you? There are many, many bands that have some good songs, but I wouldn't go for their show if I just listen to them casually. What's the point? I'm sure I would enjoy just a short amount of time of their setlist, because I don't know their discography. This week System of a Down revealed they'll come here next summer and although it seems a 'once in a life' thing, I like 6-7 songs of them, they may play a 20+ song setlist... I don't even consider to go, because I know it's not for me.

Yeah, they came up with a setlist with a lot of Chuck song, but it was clear from the beginning it's not an actual anniversary tour, like it was with DTLI. I also find it weird they didn't play Open Your Eyes or I'm not the One, it's a bummer, but I just don't understand why you even went there if you mainly like only Chuck and can't enjoy the rest.
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Post by water »

I don't think that's a fair comparison. I mean it's not like I couldn't enjoy the other songs, but this is the setlist they said they were playing:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3GldGoFzWb/

If you go to a concert to see your favorite songs, that a band said they would play, and they don't play them, it has nothing to do with how fervently you listen to them. If they didn't play Fat Lip, you probably wouldn't be surprised if people left the show feeling like they missed out on something. It's not like I went to the show hoping they'd pull the songs out of nowhere, that's what the tour was advertised as, that's what the setlists said.
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Post by sprinks41 »

water wrote:If they didn't play Fat Lip, you probably wouldn't be surprised if people left the show feeling like they missed out on something.
Now that's a bad comparison. They would never not play Fat Lip, it's a staple in their career. I agree with Iam The Ghost, if the only reason you went was in hopes of hearing those 4 Chuck songs then why even bother going? Just seeing them play should be enough of an exciting experience because they're one of the best live bands in the world. Plus, if you saw the screenshot TomiT posted in the other thread, you'd know Deryck had a list of songs that would be "shuffled in" throughout the tour. Things change. There's no reason (pun intended) you shouldn't have still enjoyed the show.
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Post by Iam The Ghost »

water wrote:I don't think that's a fair comparison. I mean it's not like I couldn't enjoy the other songs, but this is the setlist they said they were playing:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3GldGoFzWb/

If you go to a concert to see your favorite songs, that a band said they would play, and they don't play them, it has nothing to do with how fervently you listen to them. If they didn't play Fat Lip, you probably wouldn't be surprised if people left the show feeling like they missed out on something. It's not like I went to the show hoping they'd pull the songs out of nowhere, that's what the tour was advertised as, that's what the setlists said.
This is just a photo of the setlist of only one night. It's a good starting point of what you can expect, but it's never a definite thing. On a tour it's usually changing, maybe they play the same songs for 3-4 shows, then they try other things: maybe debut a new song; maybe they're not headliner so they have less time, have to miss some; maybe there's another artist who they can jam with and play something entirely different (like Faint with Mike Shinoda), The point is: the setlist is always changing. And not just for them, look up some other artists on tour, it's a common thing. Ed Sheeran was on constant tour for more than 2 years: do you think he played the exact same songs on the exact same order? Of course not, artists would bore to death.

Look, I can relate you're upset because you wanted to hear those songs. I would also be disappointed, they play them rarely and now there was the opportunity. But there's a band with many, many good songs, in my experience they always amazing in live, this was the first time you could attend to their show... and you didn't enjoy it at all, because they missed out 3 or 4 songs? Then if you asked me before the show, I could've told you not to go, it wasn't worth for you, especially when you were so unsure in the first place.
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Post by dff_punk »

Yeah, two things:

1. It is indeed peculiar if you look at setlist.fm, because they started the tour with 27 or so songs in the first two shows, then they only play a "watered down" setlist of 20 or so songs. The reason we can only speculate. Not enough stamina? But Open Your Eyes and I'm Not The One made their way back on the last one. Guess you were just unlucky?

2. You should have had fun nonetheless. Even the songs they play for the 1000000th time ever are still so fucking fun live! I get that you've been through a lot to see the Chuck deep cuts, but hey, you should have made the best out of it anyway :)
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Re: Saw Sum 41 for the first time, felt miserable

Post by ChrisC1997 »

The Sums played with Bowling For Soup the other night, and Jaret posted on his instagram a photo of Deryck saying Biz was sick. Can only imagine that they've cut songs so he can recover quicker, unlss theres curfew laws or something? If that's the show you were at I'd say that's the reason for less songs than expected, but also a tour setlist is gonna change up here and there.

Unfortunate to hear you had a bad time. However I can't relate, as it's rare to get Sum 41 over here in Australia so any opportunity to see them regardless of what they play is always a thrill for me (I've seen them 3 times with basically the same sets give or take a few). Don't let this discourage you from seeing them ever again, they're the type of band to pull random songs out of nowhere and make the place go off, let yourself be surprised and take what you didn't get to see with a grain of salt I guess? Cause at the end of the day, they play the hits for a reason too.

Big example of that is they were/are mainly over in Aus when the festivals are going on (Download, Soundwave, etc.) and like every band, mainly play the big singles in their 45-60 minute set. The Only song from Chuck I had ever seen was 'We're All To Blame', and I would've loved '88' in full or 'Jessica Kill' or some other deep cut for me and the other hardcore fans but out of nowhere this year at Download they pulled out 'No Reason' and it blew my god damn mind.
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Post by Boni »

Personally think you're a bit daft for going to see a band when you do not like a percentage of of their songs in the off chance the stars align and they play all the songs you do like.
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Re: Saw Sum 41 for the first time, felt miserable

Post by TomiT14 »

I understand where you're coming from. After seeing the setlists of the first shows of the tour, I got really excited. If I was crazy enough to make the trip overseas to see this show, I would be quite disappointed to attend "just a regular" setlist. :confusion:

That being said, I have over 30 shows on my belt. When I first saw them in 2008, Underclass Hero was my favorite album. Since their tour was called Underclass Hero Tour, I expected them to play multiple songs from that album. They only ended up playing 3 songs off UH, but I wasn't disappointed at all. Disappointment didn't even cross my mind. I got to see my favorite band live! They played some of my favorite songs and some that I didn't care about before, but at the show I was 100% excited from start to finish, regardless what they played.

So like I said, I understand your frustration of the setlist, but I don't understand how you can be so disappointed after seeing them for the FIRST time. Setlists change from show to show for different reasons. I think latter part of the tour the band was given shorter stage times (1h30 instead of 2h) by the venue, and at some point Deryck was sick. If it was because of the stage time, then blame the venue, not the band. If it was because a band member was sick, I'd rather take a shorter set than a cancellation. I think some Canadians here are still waiting for them to return after they cancelled part of their tour in 2007.

If all my happiness was counting on seeing some specific songs instead of the performance as a whole, I wouldn't be so shocked to end up disappointed.
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