ShareSum 41 performing their Tour Of The Setting Sum at The Motorpoint Arena Nottingham on Wednesday 30th October 2024.
Images and Review by Kevin Cooper
Sum 41, the pop punk veterans from Canada, are finally hanging up their guitars after nearly thirty years that has seen them experience near fatal car crashes, assaults and alcoholism which saw them going from platinum sales to struggling to fill smaller venues.
Now on a massive final farewell world tour, it was a sold out crowd at the Arena on Wednesday night who turned out to say their farewells and to witness Sum 41 going out with a bang, confetti showers, pyrotechnic jets, lasers, balloons, a giant moving skull and front man Deryck Whibley’s brilliant showmanship, which all served to create a visual extravaganza.
Kicking the set off with 2001’s Motivation before The Hell Song had the crowd singing along and waving their arms aloft. With a shorter set list for their Nottingham show, they still made sure that they showcased the various differences in their evolving sound, blending the early pop punk days with the heavier, more aggressive tracks from their later years, including tracks from their final album, Heaven :x: Hell which was released earlier this year.
Screaming Bloody Murder and Underclass Hero went down a storm as did the raucous new songs Landmines and Dopamine which saw Whibley command the stage with his magnetic presence, his energy levels never wavering.
We’re All To Blame, Some Say and No Reason from 2004’s album Chuck, were all given an airing as was their debut single, Makes No Difference. The reflective Pieces came late in the main set, before Fat Lip and set closer Still Waiting had the crowd jumping around.
For the first encore the early anthem song Summer was an early Halloween treat, as was Waiting On A Twist Of Fate before they delivered In Too Deep to Nottingham for the last time. With the crowd expecting another encore they were not disappointed when the band suddenly came back to deliver a beautiful So Long Goodbye and a delightful Machine Gun.
And as the confetti swirled around, the lasers worked overtime and the pyrotechnics went into overdrive, it had been a fitting and powerful farewell to a band that has undoubtedly left an indelible mark on the pop-punk world.