Paramore packs Denver's Fillmore

Paramore and Paper Route deliver at rescheduled concert

November 8, 2009

After Paramore singer Hayley WIlliams called in sick to a block of concerts last month, things could have gone steeply downhill for the Tennessee band. As anyone with even the faintest interest in pop music knows, Williams' "laryngitis" could have meant anything from the flu to full-blown rehab.

Thankfully, Williams and the rest of the band brought nothing less than their "A" game to a sold-out Fillmore Sunday night, as if to reassure fans that Paramore remains on track in its quest to become the best teenybopper rock band in the world. If anything, Williams' voice was stronger than expected and she seemed to have no trouble giving her usual hyperactive performance, wheeling and backpedaling across the stage all night long. The venue's sound techs were up to the challenge, smartly lifting the 20-year-old singer's voice above the band's three-guitar attack. Songs ranging from 2005's "Emergency" to the current hit "Ignorance," substantially beefed up from their album versions, brought the capacity crowd as close to a mosh pit as the significant parental presence would let it get.

Opening acts The Swellers and Paper Route each remarked on the crowd's enthusiasm, and Williams told fans that her band had decided the Denver fans were the tour's best so far. Even if she says that to all the fans, the local crowd could hardly have been happier.