Chelsea’s Live opened its doors on March 1 to fans looking for a night of rock music. PUP, Joyce Manor and Pool Kids kicked off their brief tour here in Baton Rouge, and the crowd was tightly packed and buzzing with adrenaline for the night to come. 

The band to take the stage was Pool Kids, a four-piece emo band from Tallahassee, FL. The ensemble put on a performance that the crowd loved with high energy from the initial notes of the set. 

I was initially skeptical about Pool Kids’ performance as I had no prior knowledge of this band before, but I quickly fell into their catchy rhythms that captivated the venue and gave a warm welcome to start off the night. 

There weren’t any mosh pits forming during their set, but fans were dancing and screaming the lyrics alongside the band throughout the set. Their set list included songs such as their hit “$5 Subtweet” and “I Hope You’re Right”, beautifully combined with visuals as colorful lights splashed the stage throughout the track. 

Next on the lineup was punk rock band Joyce Manor. Hailing from sunny California, the band was met with great excitement. The venue roared alive as push pits began to open and crowd surfers moved their way to the front of the crowd. The crowd was the most receptive to this band, even with the technical difficulty from frontman Barry Johnson when he accidentally unplugged his guitar from one of the amps in the midst of a track. 

I loved this set of this band as they were the most energetic performers of the night, and their performance changed the energy of the venue. The crowd was suffocating with the continually expanding sweaty push pits that formed alongside the crowd surfers who kept jumping atop the crowd from the barricade. The setlist was jam-packed with a whopping 22 songs ranging from classic Joyce Manor hits like “Constant Headache” and “Catalina Fight Song” to more recent songs like “Don’t Try” and “NBTSA”. 

The more interesting part of their time on stage was when the band took requests toward the end of their setlist and played songs that were not on the original setlist. 

The last band to take the stage was PUP. I wasn’t in the middle of the crowd anymore so I couldn’t for myself the big pit that formed, but I could feel its presence as they displaced a good portion of the crowd. The bopping of heads and raised hands as the audience members sang every lyric throughout the performance, it was a solid set to end the night. It was a chaotic set, as PUP jumped around their discography randomly to piece it all together, but the crowd absolutely surged as the band performed big songs like “Dark Days” and “Morbid Stuff”. 

Like Joyce Manor, PUP had headbangers, crowd surfers and moshers in their crowd as they skillfully performed alongside each other.