Michael Clifford Is “cool” Enough to Sell Out The Fonda Theatre
Article written by and photos by Natalie Ryan
On July 31st, Michael Clifford played a sold-out show at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. Announced on June 25th, the 1,200 capacity venue was sold out in less than a minute. “One Night Only” quickly turned into two nights, with the second date also selling out. Clifford recently released his solo debut album “SIDEQUEST” after more than a decade of music with the Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer. Often shortened to 5SOS (pronounced five sauce), the band was formed in 2011, and has released five studio albums to date, each peaking at No.1 in Australia and receiving numerous awards and accolades. 5SOS is still active, but every member has released their own solo music, with Clifford being the latest of the four to do so. He has also joined his bandmates on the charts, as “SIDEQUEST” hit the top 10 on the ARIA Albums Chart in its first week. For his album release week, he had a jam-packed schedule filled with pop-ups, signings, and sandwiches.
On album release day, he hosted a thrift shop with ~400 pieces of his own clothing for sale in addition to the album. After that, he hosted two signings and a sandwich pop-up at Ike’s Sandwiches where he met fans and had a signature sandwich that came free with a purchase of the album. For the live shows, Clifford was joined by electronic-indie pop artist Ryan Hall as his opener, and during Clifford’s set, Hall joined him on stage as guitarist and backup vocals. Fans came from all over to see these exclusive shows, some even camping out in front of the venue overnight.
Ryan Hall started off the show with a guitar, a groovebox, and no backup necessary. He kept the crowd involved and engaged, slipping in a snippet of “Who Says” by Selena Gomez in the middle of a song and playing his cover of “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls, the crowd singing along resoundingly. He made some of his own beats in real time with ease. He got the crowd to jump with him during his more upbeat songs, and put their flashlights up for the especially sad one. During a break between songs, he riled the audience back up with the chorus of “Life Is a Highway” by Rascal Flatts. The standout of Hall’s set was his final song “i took shrooms at laguna beach and thought of you,” which got the crowd jumping in time with the beat and was a fun song to close out with.
Find Ryan Hall at his individual links here: Spotify and Instagram
Before it was time for Michael Clifford to take the stage, a video game intro started. A dialogue with video-game-character Michael as a knight with insecurities on a sidequest that is just doing his best played on the screen. Clifford ran out on stage with Ryan Hall and drummer Joey Castro. He started out his set with “cool,” one of the lead singles from the album. The crowd supplied his backing vocals, shouting “am I cool enough” during the choruses. With “SIDEQUEST” having a 10-song tracklist, it was obvious the show wouldn’t be a very long one, but Clifford took an appropriate amount of talking breaks to round out the time and interact with the audience.
He took care to thank everyone for coming, introduce his band, and express how insane this time in his life has been. He talked about being a new dad (with another kid on the way!), releasing a solo album for the first time, and gearing up for a new 5SOS era. On that 5SOS note, he mentioned that after these two live shows, that would be it for “SIDEQUEST”. Whether that’s just it for a while or forever, it was clear that these shows were incredibly special and would not be happening again any time soon, and everyone in the room was trying to bottle the feeling.
An immediate highlight of the set was “thirsty,” a perfect showcase of Clifford’s vocals and the intense music that translated beautifully live. He went on to play his song with Hall, “if i had a choice,” and praised him for pulling double duty. During breaks, Clifford made self-deprecating jokes on par with his album themes of anxiety and expressed how he was feeling about the show: “I was nervous for this one. This one scared me.” He thanked the crew, his wife, the fans, and his favorite-artist-turned-friend Porter Robinson (even though he unfortunately couldn’t be there in person). After that, he launched into “kill me for always,” his collaboration with Robinson, a fan favorite. Since he was running out of original songs to play, he did a cover of “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne, which got the crowd to a 10, excitedly singing along to the iconic 2000s hit.
Everyone was invigorated, and Clifford topped that by bringing out Awsten Knight (Waterparks) to do their song “give me a break,” following some silly banter that the audience was eating up. The entire venue was jumping around and screaming the words. Afterwards, the stage was vacated, and another video game dialogue played on screen, saying that the sidequest was over. For the encore, “enough” was the final note of the night, one of the loudest and most vulnerable songs from Clifford all evening. The album hits hard on themes of insecurity, comparison, and longing for love and attention. If nothing else, everyone in the venue singing in unison about feeling like they’re not enough was a firm reminder that they are not alone in how they feel, whether on stage or in the crowd.
One of the best things about the whole show was that Clifford’s dedicated fans were singing every word to every song, despite the fact that the full album had only been out for six days at that point. Furthermore, fans had shown up in DIY merch, themed nails, custom friendship bracelets, and more to express their appreciation for Clifford. After the show was over, leaving the venue, fans were already setting up chairs and tents for the second show, the next night.
