Geting There
It's a mixed crowd and to be honest anything could go. Hollywood Ending have one album under their belt and you'd think that nobody here would have heard of them - after all they're supporting Charlie from Busted so it's easy to draw opinions as to why a lot of the crowd are here. Thankfully it appears that the crowd are actually slightly older and wiser and are here out of curiosity - most more than happy to sing along with Hollywood Ending rather than stare wondering who they are.
Launching in to their half hour set it is clear from that onset that Hollywood Ending are still at the start of their career - but it's going to be a bright one. You can't help but watch them intently as their performance demands no less.
As the contents of their debut album "Praying to Fiction" is played to some 700-odd people in Birmingham Academy 2 you can tell that Hollywood Ending still have an unpolished sound - but not in a bad way. If anything, their sound gives them the dirty edge that many bands they compete with lack - you can almost feel the blood and sweat that they've put in to their music. As you stand there thinking that you know what's coming next you get a pleasant surprise and the songs head off in a totally different direction - something that most bands just don't seem capable of.
Four guys, three vocalists and just one album but it's hard to ignore these guys. They have something special that you just can't ignore. There are moments where the vocals do seem to let the overall performance down and it's not an arena-packing sounds - but that doesn't stop them being damned good overall.
Post-hardcore? Maybe. Still finding their feet? Quite probably. Did they put Fightstar to shame? Definitely.