Maroon 5 Melbourne Concert 2008

I was really excited to go and see Maroon 5 in concert. I loved their first album, Songs About Jane. I listened to that album so many times. Their latest album, It Won't Be Long Soon, hasn't been as good as the first, but still some good songs.

The concert turned out to be good, and bad. It started right on time at Rod Laver Arena, where Brandi Carlile began to entertain the crowd. I had never heard of Brandi but I think we'll be hearing more of her soon. She was really good, with some enjoyable songs and very strong vocals. Her version of Hellelujah, most famously covered by Jeff Buckley, was very good indeed. However, she was still the support act and the audience was only half full and people were watching it like they were watching lawn bowls, politely.

After a 30 minute break, One Republic came on. The crowd was much bigger by this stage and a larger cheer went up. One Republic went through some of their ablum songs, which probably some people didn't know too well. I have listened to their album so many times that I knew all the words even. When they sang "Stop and Stare" people joined in the singing. Finally, when they sang "Apologize", a mass of mobile cameras went up and everyone was filming it, myself included hehe. The crowd sang along to this song and then it was over after about 30 minutes. One Republic left the stage and again we waited another 30 minutes.

Finally, the main act came on. Maroon 5 started off full of energy and went from song to song. I have to say that they're an even better band live than on their albums. Adam Levine was working the crowd and everyone was playing really hard. I loved the songs from their first album, such as "Harder to Breathe" which they remixed and many many other songs. Their high energy songs really worked and all of us on the floor were up and dancing. A guy two seats down from me was singing so loud I could hear him all night. Maroon 5 played some slower songs that didn't work as well. Their cover of Phil Collins "One More Night" was so bad, it was worse than at karaoke. Otherwise, the crowd was pumping all night and they were great.

However, before we knew it after an hour, they said good night and that was it. It was all over, in a mere one hour. I know that they didn't have many stops (one brief one), but one hour is a bit too less singing when people have paid $99 for tickets. After 3.5 hours at Rod Laver Arena, we had only seen 2 hours of show, and one hour of that was support acts. As good as the support acts were, people were there to see the main act, Maroon 5. I think Brandi Carlile best summed it up when she said "I used to go to concerts and never pay attention to the support act, until I became a support act". The crowd didn't get into it until Maroon 5 were on stage. As good as the concert was, I felt short changed. I would have gladly had no support act for Maroon 5 to do a 90 minute set. Lets hope the next time they come back, they do a bit more work and entertain the crowd to their money's worth.

One Republic

Maroon 5