With just a simple glance at the bar or the stage, the West End Saloon in Media looks like any neighborhood bar. It’s dark in some areas, it has a few tables, a thick cloud of smoke engulfs people at the bar, but that all changed on Wednesday, Feb. 12, when Love Bomb took the stage.
Matt Robinson, lead singer and sophomore, took the stage with the band just after 9 p.m. to perform a 13 song set. Robinson used his time on the microphone to talk to the audience about their participation in the night’s gig. Robinson also explained certain feelings in their songs, noting that one song was for “anyone who locked themselves out of their own house.” Lastly, Robinson used his time to blast bassist Nathaniel Malara, the newest member of the band. At one point, Robinson asked the crowd if any of them played bass.
The band surrounding the stage played their songs without missing a beat. Art Amici, the shirtless drummer, blasted away on the drums through songs constantly lighting cigarettes. Andrew Fullerton, lead guitarist, kept with the beats of the songs, once even with a cigarette hanging perfectly from his mouth. Malara plucked on the bass on the far right of the stage, bouncing to the rhythms of the songs as the band played on.
While normally, it would be hard for a crowd to get into the sound of a band just making their break, the band managed to keep the crowd going, especially with songs like “Red Blooded American Male,” “Springsteen Town” and “You Build The Walls.” Towards the end of the show, the band also played “More Than This,” which they called their single. The song is currently on the rotation for 89.1 WYBF FM, along with “Burning Out Again.” “More Than This” was certainly a crowd pleaser as everyone seemed to get into it the most, even with one girl next to the mixing board, allowing her head to bounce from shoulder to shoulder.
Into the night, the band hung out while other bands played, and they shared beers with people who wanted to talk to them about music. “It was great to see all these familiar faces in the crowd,” Fullerton said. Fullerton may have once called the band a “poor man’s Queen” in jest, but once the band hit the stage, they were clearly “more than that.”
