Aftershock review: A Day To Remember

One very memorable act, in a weekend of unforgettable shows where every performer gave their all, was, aptly, A Day To Remember, who performed on Sunday 15th September at the time of early-evening when the sun was hitting them right in-the-eye.


Whose show involved more-than-the-average number of crowdsurfers, a banana man, a rubber dinghy, walking-on-the-crowd in a giant hamster ball while still singing? The hardcore-pop-punk band from Ocala, Florida, of course!

And don't forget the members of the audience being flung ten feet or more into the air from a picnic blanket? (I still don't know what inspired them to do that. It seemed to surprise singer Jeremy McKinnon as much as anyone else in the close-to-20,000-people crowd. We watched, open-mouthed, as one person after another appeared, mid-air, then hurtled earthwards again. The same person didn't appear more than a couple of times. I had visions of them laying, discarded, mashed into the ground when they missed the blanket or it ripped down the middle or something.)



I don't know if the blanket-tossing was in any way related to A Day To Remember's music, or if it was a sort of post-punk-extreme-pogoing. Maybe someone would care to enlighten me? Comment below!


And can someone please let me into the banana secret? Is it all about Florida? Or is there something else? There had been an inflatable banana surfing the crowd for most of the day.




I'd made my way back around the huge crowd to the area at stage left, where there was a small hill with a great view over the crowd, but not so much visibility of the far stage. So when Jeremy McKinnon rolled off the stage and onto the crowd in his huge bubble, it was a huge surprise. And he kept on singing! That's what you call "supportive fans"!



The banana man was on stage, firing something (t-shirts?) into the crowd with the sort of bazooka that Slamson, the Sacramento Kings' mascot, uses during half-time. Then he appeared with his rubber dinghy. Launched it onto the crowd (theory: crowdsurf = surf = ocean = boat?) and then clambered on board for a rocky ride around the front of the audience.

 Was it "my" music? Probably not. But was it (really) entertaining? Absolutely!

Click on the photos to see the complete gallery of A Day To Remember images.

And there are more blanket-tossing pictures in the People gallery, too