Simple Plan Sell Out First Ave

For many, Simple Plan represents a soundtrack to their youth. The last time Simple Plan came through Minnesota was over a decade ago. Back then, a lot of their fans were too young to see them live. Needless to say, the sold out crowd was comprised of kids that never really grew up, coming back to see a band that helped them survive childhood.

Before the crowd could relive the good ole’ days through Simple Plan, Patent Pending came to the stage to show them a different form of nostalgia. For those who hadn’t heard of Patent Pending before the show, they were in for an amusing surprise. The band has an entire EP comprised of songs about Mario, his significant other, Peach, and Mario Kart courses such as Rainbow Road. In addition to modernizing classic video games, Patent Pending performed choreographed dance routines that included band members dipping and kissing one another. As if that wasn’t enough, they then had a crowd-swimming-competition between brothers. Fueled by sibling rivalry and with the crowd as their sea, Joe and Robert Ragosta started at the back of the crowd and swam to the stage as quickly as they could.

After Patent Pending showed the crowd some love, it was Set It Off’s turn. In addition to surfing through the crowd, Cody Carson was flying around the stage and jumping off great heights. Cody wasn’t the only one taking risky leaps of faith though. Alluding to their long journey in the music scene, Chuck Comeau of Simple Plan proclaimed “I’m going to throw it back by throwing myself into you tonight,” before leaping from the stage, over the barricade, and into the crowd. Simple Plan exceeded expectations of those that had waited fifteen years to hear the album performed live. Their set was not limited to songs off of “No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls” however. The setlist was packed with all of their classics: numerous hits from “Still Not Getting Any” and even a song from their latest album, “Taking One For The Team.” Regardless of having young ones at home, the dads otherwise known as Simple Plan still exuded their young-at-heart humor by inserting dirty jokes wherever they could.

Pierre Bouvier took everyone on a journey back in time to when “No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls” was released by exclaiming “This album came out before Spotify, before Snapchat, before Facebook, before YOUTUBE, before MYSPACE!” Thinking back to this time really puts things in perspective. It says a lot about their following: even though that point in time feels far in the past, there were still plenty of people that came back fifteen years later to see their childhood heroes.