Four Year Strong & Set Your Goals @ The Sugarmill, Stoke.

Two of America’s latest power-popcore exports take to the Sugarmill’s stage as they take a night off from their tour with New Found Glory to please the few hundred pop rock fans this city has left.

First up are Set Your Goals who’s performance is nothing short of electric with their divine ability to ignite their music with pace and audience participation. Songs like Mutiny and Echoes engage vocalists, Matt and Jordan, in a Q&A battle hitting the ears with an active engagement of positivity and how we, as a collective, can make positive strides in this world.

Set Your Goals approach to punk rock is a slight disadvantage to them as their no holds barred approach on occasions made them lapse, missing lyrics and slight musical mistakes disjointed their performance, but took nothing away from the fun.

This is Four Year Strong’s first tour in the UK and they made sure they kicked the party into gear as they bust onto the stage with The Takeover –give the audience caution that “this is your last warning, we’re going straight on till morning”. Again this band is dual fronted, the coherence of gang vocals and pacey rhythms cranks up the velocity engaging all the audience.

They close the show with their single “Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die” to which a storm brews not only in the crowd but also up on stage. They take their performance to town, the music literally sparks the hearts in these kids, “We could barely light a match, but together we can burn this place down. When we team up. We always seem to bring this place to the ground”. These bands are about unity and having fun, which can be seen on everyone’s face.