A Day To Remember (support: Polaris)
Ljubljana / Media Park / Slovenia
Tuesday, 17 June 2025
A Day To Remember are a massively successful American outfit that rolls punk rock, hardcore, and metalcore into one, nurturing a synthesis of razor-sharp musicality — inherited from the springboard of pop — that gives their choruses an instant, infectious hook you can’t shake off, while the gnarly scaffold of distorted riffage holds you in taut tension throughout. Their songs are built so that live, especially, they amplify that pocketful of positivity and energy baked right into their DNA.
The timing of the show couldn’t have been better. Right in the thick of exam season, an evening like this was the perfect catapult out — a chance to disconnect, unwind, and escape far, far away from the stress of obligations. The kind of gig where you just show up and find that one moment that lets you effortlessly forget everything, for an hour and a half of your everyday life.
Because quite a few things went wrong that day — we found out our press accreditations had been approved less than four hours before doors opened, which tangled things up logistically for our crew too — I rocked up to Ljubljana’s Media Center around half past eight in the evening hopelessly under-informed, already mentally resigned to the eternal curse of hunting for a parking spot. Somehow I got lucky on that front, which genuinely surprised me and triggered a passing thought: “Damn — what’s going on with the crowd for this one?” In Flames the week before had sold the place out completely, with cars literally parked wherever they could fit, and we’d been there from half five in the afternoon! By the time I arrived, the Australian metalcore crew Polaris had already wrapped up, so I only caught A Day To Remember.
The band live is phenomenal. Confident, relaxed, a perfectly oiled machine — and it grinds. Vocalist Jeremy McKinnon spent the show working the riser set up at the front edge of the stage. He didn’t have to push very hard at all. The crowd was in the zone from the jump — fanatically nailing every verse and chorus melody, instantly melting into one body with the band. The evening was fantastic in every sense. Not just in the performance, but sonically too — you could clearly and perfectly feel the pulse and clank of the bass lines cutting through the guitar riffs, giving the whole thing an excellent three-dimensional spread of sound. Especially if you were watching from near the mixing desk.
“Big Ole Album Vol 1.” — the fresh studio album released earlier this year — dominated the setlist, with the commercially massive, gold-certified “Homesick” and “What Separates Me From You” close on its heels, the two together accounting for nearly half the night’s repertoire. Since singles from the new album had been trickling out to the public for three years by this point, it had already embedded itself deep with the crowd by the time the tour rolled around — as proven by the fanatical audience participation, including during the newer single LeBron (you could spot more than a few LA Lakers jersey shirts in the crowd), and Feedback…
The band also backed up their set with a carefully chosen spread of elements to crank up the intensity. The show came loaded not only with a pyrotechnic display and eruptions of smoke, but also volleys of confetti, paper streamers, and inflatable balls fired into the crowd — and near the end, a dozen rolls of toilet paper. The crowd delivered their own moments, right on cue — moshing, circle pits, and crowd-surfing, with the real nail-biting highlight coming when a guy being crowd-surfed had a mate climb up on top of him and actually stand there for a few seconds. Hope the ribs held up. In short — all the well-worn rituals that go hand in hand with the band’s attitude and stance, which only confirmed and justified the greatness of A Day To Remember.
A show that was over in a flash — the intensity was just that relentless. The only shame was that the hall was barely just over half full. So maybe a thousand people in the venue? But red-hot, every single one of them, from first to last. And that was more than enough to make for another outstanding gig, one worth every bit of attention and admiration.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
A Day To Remember – setlist:
1. The Downfall of Us All
2. I’m Made of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of?
3. 2nd Sucks
4. Right Back at It Again
5. Bad Blood
6. Paranoia
7. To the Death
8. Rescue Me (orig. Marshmello)
9. Have Faith in Me
10. Since U Been Gone (orig. Kelly Clarkson)
11. All My Friends
12. You Be Tails, I’ll Be Sonic
13. Mr. Highway’s Thinking About the End
14. Resentment
15. Mindreader
16. LeBron
17. Miracle
18. Sometimes You’re the Hammer, Sometimes You’re the Nail
19. All I Want
—encore—
20. If It Means a Lot to You
21. Flowers
22. All Signs Point to Lauderdale
