LIVE REVIEW: Sum 41 – Co-Op Live, Manchester – 28/10/2024

The key word to apply to this show—and really, this tour as a whole—is ‘celebration’. ‘Bittersweet’ is also valid, though Sum 41 themselves would probably be the first to push back on that. Deryck Whibley states enough times that it’s been nearly three decades of music from his band, inside of which they became one of the linchpins of pop-punk for an entire generation, and now just feels like the right time to call it a day. And as has always been the case ever since they announced their retirement, it’s great that Sum 41 are allowed to go out on their own terms. There’s not further tainting from burnout, or fractured relationship, or—God forbid—sordid allegations. It’s simply the culmination of a legacy, naturally reaching the point where it’s time to step back after one final blowout.

To that end, the presence of The Bronx has been dwarfed by literally every other factor of this bill. Arriving into the Co-Op Live—the new biggest indoor venue in the UK, which is demonstrably not this band’s usual stomping ground—you might even forget they’re even booked on, if it weren’t for their banner drifting haphazardly in the middle of the stage. For a lesser band, it’d be cause for alarm; for true punk lifers like The Bronx, it’s another Monday night. They clearly aren’t fazed, such is the electricity they emit even when they aren’t fully dominating. As much as Matt Caughthran’s patterned shirt and two bottles of beer in hand as he steps out make him look like your dad on holiday, the screaming, searing intensity couldn’t be more different. The way he talks about being invited to open in the UK makes this all seem so casual and last-minute, and yet the sound is phenomenal in the chunky rhythm section paired with rolling-boulder guitars, and Ken Horne’s blistering extended solo on Around The Horn wears more flair than your bog-standard opener by orders of magnitude. The best part is how the crowd does seem tentatively excited by it all, as opposed to a wave of nonplussed expressions an arena opener often inspires. Knifeman in particular gets even the uninitiated going, such is the style of The Bronx. Even as clear second-placers, they’re leaving nowhere close to empty-handed.

And make no mistake—‘clear’ in that sense is to be written in giant, pulsating letters, because this is The Sum 41 Show. Not a decibel of thunder is being stolen; it’s been arranged that way. It’s the sort of undertaking designed to feel enormous—over two hours of music, spanning every touchstone in Sum 41’s catalogue, and solidified together to feel as grand a send-off as possible. At no point does this feel like an arena run just out of departing courtesy; they feel so at home on a big stage with equally big production, and a brand of punk that goes even bigger than that. It’s all well and good to break out the pyro and confetti and streamers at any given moment (which tends to be during more songs than it isn’t), but on the purest musical front, Sum 41 belong here.

For one, they just sound incredible. Whatever black magic has gone into fixing the Co-Op Live so the roof doesn’t cave in everyday anymore seems to have cleaned up the muddiness of arena sound systems, because it’s hard to imagine Sum 41 sounding better than this. They’re crisp and buoyant when they need to be, just as their metal sides come equipped with a spiked-collar bite. Over My Head (Better Off Dead) is the first to get there with aplomb, succeeded by the likes of Screaming Bloody Murder or Fake My Own Death that have legitimate power to them. There’s a hunger and energy that Sum 41 exude that clears any and all cynicism around knocking out a final run. Whibley especially has the perfect balance between wiry punk and seasoned enormo-rocker, rarely stuck behind a guitar to make his presence on the stage’s outcrop all the more impactful. Even his voice—as accommodating for a rasp from age and previous batterings it might have taken—is notably strident for whatever is required of it.

It’s where that word ‘celebration’ comes into play in earnest. Obviously there’s an amount of effort put in to keeping the machine of such a tremendous set moving, but it’s not mechanical in how it works. If it were, you’d feel it. Rather, there’s a blinding exuberance at almost all times, centred around genuine gratitude and the desire to reward a crowd for seeing Sum 41 off in such a huge fashion. You’d think it mawkish in many other situations—hell, in situations just like this—for Whibley to address the crowd as the ‘Sum 41 family’, or to ask for the lights to be raised to see everyone, but it isn’t dwelled on. It’s the natural expression of a man who’s spent most of his life in this band, fielding highs and crushing lows within it, and taking moments to reflect on it all. You’d be able to tell if this were purely an act; it’s why bands who lay on thick, gloopy sentimentality rarely seem as honest as they want to.

Therefore, it’s good to have a band with the self-awareness to know that isn’t what they’re about. The music has always taken pride of place in Sum 41 above the personality or ‘celebrity’, reflected in an intersectional gauntlet that hits every note it has to. Mind you, it’s not entirely all killer, no filler—if they’d like to take classic-rock snippet medleys into the sunset with them, that’d be just peachy—but it’s close enough. Even up to the very present, the double-header of Landmines and Dopamine have the right amount of zest to fit into this greatest-of-greatest hits set. Pop-punk Sum 41 really does strike the most special chord of all, mostly as a showcase of how singular in their era they were. Throwbacks like Underclass Hero and Makes No Difference still have a rougher feel all to themselves, and, of course, Fat Lip and In Too Deep are the eternal jams. As a pair of genre- and generation-defining songs—the ripples of which are still felt in this very room—they’re utterly unbeatable.

To that end, Sum 41’s finish line is placed on the highest of highs. You get the sense that’s what this whole finishing campaign was about, considering the entire concept of duality on this year’s Heaven :x: Hell. That album tried to be an all-inclusive capper, but only managed in a roundabout way. For the true ending, you need to zoom out even further and take in the whole spectacle. Here’s a band driving to the end in a blaze of glory, culminating in a blown-out package of almost 30 years’ worth of tried-and-true bangers, with just the right hint of poignancy to taste. Of course it’s a roaring success, and though they’ll be dearly missed, the celebration of Sum 41 is the perfect note to finish on.

Words by Luke Nuttall