The lights go out and a two-minute countdown appears above the stage.  You stand up and begin to cheer with the rest of the crowd.  As the last ten seconds pass by, your heart beats rapidly.  It gets dark and Ashton begins drumming.  Soon after, Michael and Luke appear on stage with their guitars and Calum with his bass.  The lights flash and you recognize the familiar guitar riff of “End Up Here.”  In an instant, you realize that you’re at a     5 Seconds of Summer concert.

On September 1st 2015, I attended a 5 Seconds of Summer concert at Jones Beach Theather in Wantagh, New York, for their Rock Out With Your Socks Out tour.  The capacity of the waterfront venue is 15,000 people.  5 Seconds of Summer are from Sydney, Australia and consist of four members, Luke Hemmings (guitar and vocals), Calum Hood (bass and vocals), Michael Clifford (guitar and vocals) and Ashton Irwin (drums and vocals).  They have been a band for almost four years now The opening act for the show was Hey Violet. They were an amazing choice because they performed with the same rock vibe as 5 Seconds of Summer. In addition to recruiting them to go on tour, they even signed them to their record label, Hi Or Hey Records.

5 Seconds of Summer kicked off their first headline tour, Rock Out With Your Socks Out, on May 4th in Lisbon, Portugal. The tour consisted of a total of 69 shows, 35 in North America, 25 in Europe and 6 in Oceania.  Throughout the tour, they performed three tracks from their new album, Sounds Good Feels Good.  The songs were “Permanent Vacation” “She’s Kinda Hot” and “Jet Black Heart.”  They were a great choice to play on tour because they gave their fans an idea of what the sound for the next album would be like.  Many of the shows were sold out and they even played two or three nights in one place due to the abundance of fans that wanted to attend.

5 Seconds of Summer performed an outstanding show and were extremely interactive with the audience.  The boys harmonized well together and were all on key.  Their setlist consisted of nineteen songs (including the encore) from their self-titled, debut album 5 Seconds of Summer, their second album Sounds Good Feels Good and a couple of covers.  Some moments that stood out were, during “Rejects” when they picked a fan to come on stage and play Michael’s guitar, the beginning of “Long Way Home” when Luke asked the crowd to sing along with him and during “Amnesia” when the crowd swayed illuminated phones in the air.  My favorite part was during “Permanent Vacation” when the crowd was split up into three sections and either sang with Michael, clapped with Luke or shouted “hey!” with Calum while Ashton drummed in the background.
Unfortunately, the Rock Out With Your Socks Out tour ended on September 13th in West Palm Beach, Florida, but the Sounds Live Feels Live tour will begin on February 19th in Nagoya, Japan, in which they will play songs from their new album Sounds Good Feels Good.  Overall the show was amazing and I’m glad that I attended.  I definitely recommend going; you won’t be disappointed!