Starting with a mini recap, as I know some attention spans are short (no tea, no shade, I get it), and I know people care more about the photos so… after attending Belfast, Dublin, Birmingham, London, Cardiff, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin & Milan, with all kinds of tickets, I had an absolute blast from the seats all the way to the star pit. My point & shoot camera came with me to a few of those shows, and you can see a full gallery here!

If you have seen 5 Seconds Of Summer before, you’ll know how wildly different this tour was compared to old tours, if you haven’t as this is your first time seeing them, what a treat! The catwalk, the solosos moment, the dolls, the pit walks, the Boyband awards & the secret songs, all played a vital part in making it the most indulgent and fan-focused tour yet.

Their openers, wow do 5SOS know how to pick good openers, South Arcade (Ireland, UK & EU opener) is a band I’ve “accidentally” seen a handful of times now, opening for bands in the past, so to see them on the lineup again was very cool, at this point they should just be in my music rotation. Haiden Henderson (UK opener) was cool, his music was freaky like… sexy freaky you know, I heard of quite a few people coming to these shows to see him specifically too, which is fun. But Master Peace (Ireland & EU opener), his energy was just next level, I can’t really explain it, but he just knew how to hype up the crowd, and the bravery it takes to open first, to people still entering the venue… I take my hat off. His setlist was banger after banger, he made time fly and truly I wish his set was longer. From chants to little dances to covering new songs in every European city, he made that show his own and I was completely in awe, and Hattie… the drummer, everyone’s in love with her and I do not blame them, I am merely one of many. To think he’s not headlining arenas himself already is quite frankly baffling to me, that man belongs on a stage, I’ve not seen a small artist like that own such a big stage so well, in a very long time. Master Peace, from the bottom of my little Londoner heart, I adore you, and wish nothing but the best, and the loudest success story for you.

I won’t yap about every single show, as ultimately it was the same show, just with different highlights each time, don’t worry, you won’t be reading the same thing 10 times.

Now let’s get into it. Belfast, opening night, and essentially going in blind (aside from the setlist leaks that 5SOS did themselves) – I had a “No.1 Obsession Seated” ticket. I truly had no idea what to expect, singing along to every song, it’s a 5SOS tour, they’ll obviously play 5SOS songs, right? right… up until Luke started singing ‘Starting Line’, whilst I was singing along, I was equally as confused because my brain wasn’t registering it fully, I knew the song, I knew the words, but I also knew it wasn’t a 5SOS song, so what on earth was going on? It took until the chorus to realise what was happening, and I positively lost my mind. Then right after ‘She Looks So Perfect’, waiting for the encore, the lights stayed down but a small part of the back of the venue lit up, and you could feel the energy shift when people realised the band was walking through the crowd to get back to the main stage, excitement erupted as people were getting high-fives from their favourite band – humble brag, I got one from Ashton & Michael.

For Dublin I was “No.1 Obsession Standing”, which meant, due to the stage layout, I had a very good shot at getting barrier for the catwalk (which I did), and for a few parts of the show, 5SOS spend a good amount of time there. As we all know, 5SOS have their allocated “sides” of the stage, so depending on your bias/lane, will depend on where you aim in the crowd, I obviously, always ended up in roughly the same place – figure it out, I’m not telling you. For the ‘Telephone Busy’ into ‘Evolve’ transition, witnessing it right in front of me, clear as day, was life changing to say the least. I know we all loved the ‘Easier’ into ‘More’ transition (which they kept alive for this tour), believe me, this new seamless transition is up there.

London was such an important show for me, it was my first “Star Pit” show, as it’s considered my home town show, but also it was 13 years to the day, of the first time I saw 5SOS live, when they opened for One Direction at The O2, on April 2nd 2013. This was one of my favourite shows on tour, the intimacy of the star pit was crazy, and the VIP march items you get plus the soundcheck, all makes the pricing a little more reasonable – as the most expensive ticket. Emotions were running high to say the least, it was just such an incredible show, to see my favourite band that close, with a good friend of mine, singing my favourite songs, it was just beyond special. That’s what fan culture is all about, the love that is just abundant in album rollouts and tours like this, sharing it with friends, making new friends, exchanging crafts – the Everyone’s A Star tour was full of people making friendship bracelets, keyrings, handing out photo cards, it was just so special.

Berlin is the other show that is up there with my favourites on tour, that was a very special day. I have been seeing 5SOS live for 13 years (duh), and in that time, I have done many VIP experiences, and never been chosen to speak to the boys in soundcheck, it’s a game of luck and chance. But Berlin… I went into central Berlin for lunch the day of the show, and ended up meeting the whole band, to which Ashton made a point of saying he didn’t like my shirt (on the left), which stinks of jealousy in my humble opinion (for clarity, I am joking), just to check in to VIP and be told my question had been selected, therefore I was about to talk to the band about their music – now, if you don’t already know, their soundcheck experience for this tour was set up like a press conference of an egotistical boyband on the brink of breaking up, it’s been a whole thing throughout the album rollout and is consistent in the skits throughout the shows also. Michael and Luke decided to pick on me, as a part of the skit, which I thought was very funny, it made it much more memorable and just personal to me, rather than an automated, one size fits all, styled interaction. During the show, Calum also gave me his pick, and I have been collecting Calum picks since 2018 – and almost left this tour without one.

Now, the way the show was set up, was telling the story of the band essentially through different “acts”, like a theatre show, with skits scattered throughout also, which gave everyone time to rest, drink, compose, whatever you needed in those moments, there was an opportunity to – as well as the band obviously. All these skits and acts made the show easy to follow for first timers, or people who had been dragged their by their children, partners or friends. One of the most exciting parts was the Boyband Awards, where a fan, at random, got selected to present 5SOS with an award, on stage, whilst I was never once lucky enough to be picked for it, I did watch on in admiration.

Setlist:
NOT OK
No.1 Obsession
Teeth
Easier
More
istillfeelthesame
No Shame
She’s Kinda Hot
Boyband
Telephone Busy
Evolve
Bad Omens
Ghost Of You
I’m Scared I’ll Never Sleep Again
Starting Line
Have U Found What Ur Looking For
Don’t Forget You Love Me
Enough
Amnesia
*Secret Song*
English Love Affair
Voodoo Doll
Waste The Night
Jet Black Heart
She Looks So Perfect
Everyone’s A Star
Youngblood

Overall, I cannot fault this tour, well… the Ireland & UK shows didn’t get secret songs, but other than that, I cannot fault this tour. Luckily, attending 5 EU shows meant I got 5 secret songs, so I really shouldn’t complain too much. The team also made it so special, with “thedailysauce” doing livestreams, handing out badges to people, and interviewing people, just everything about this tour was so fan-focused it was so much fun. Bringing Andy Deluca back on board was an incredible choice too, I have loved Andy’s work for 8 years now, and he’s the reason I am a photographer, so to see him on stage, working so hard, and to meet him for the first time ever in London was also so special, this tour is going down in history, that’s a promise. I truly could talk for hours, write essays about this tour, but I think it’s already long enough for a blog post… so I’ll wrap it up here.

If you’ve made it this far and somehow forgotten, there’s a full gallery of photos to be found here. Also, you can see reviews of their previous albums, singles and adjacent work (solo) elsewhere on my website, so feel free to hang around!