There lies the beauty of the album and Four Year Strong in general. While much of the material on the album perfectly encapsulates the music scene in 2007 so many of the songs are timeless exercises in infectious melodies and crunching riffs. No matter where Manchester's FYS fans were a decade ago, they're here in force tonight to help the band celebrate a milestone anniversary.
The album itself is revisited in order tonight, meaning that the brief statement of intent, 'The Takeover', commences proceedings. It also means that the album's two biggest 'hits', 'Prepare to be Digitally Manipulated' and 'Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die', are aired within the first ten minutes of the set. For most bands this would be a killer blow, and the reason why a number of acts have taken to playing their front-loaded classics in reverse order, but it's testament to the depth of quality across Four Year Strong's back catalogue that this casual discarding of huge anthems is barely noticeable.
'Beatdown In The Key Of Happy', a song which the band rarely played even when they toured the album the first time round, is now bolstered by the addition of some heavy duty Slayer riffing, lifted directly from 'Raining Blood' and 'If He's Here, Who's Running Hell?' has similar treatment with the more melodic leanings of Tears for Fears.
Once the album is brought to its crushing climax, the band blitz through an eight song greatest hits set which spans most of their other full-length releases and the closing pairing of 'It Must Really Suck to Be Four Year Strong Right Now' and 'Wasting Time (Eternal Summer)' proved that the band didn't rest on their laurels in terms of quality (or lengthy song titles) after the success of the debut.
Four Year Strong already have further UK dates penciled into their year-long birthday celebrations with an appearance at this year's Download Festival already scheduled. If you get the chance to celebrate with them, make sure you join the party.