By Jordan Bickham
Staff Writer

The concert theater was packed with 6,350 alternative music junkies who had been waiting in anticipation for this night.  The concert was sold out months before, which was not a surprise considering who was going to be on stage.

With seven popular alternative bands performing, the How the Edge Stole Christmas concert was not one to miss out on.

The radio station, 102.1 The Edge, held the concert on Friday at the Verizon Center in Grand Prairie.  The concert consisted of a series of seven performances by seven different bands, most of which fall under the genre of alternative or indie.  The bands included IAMDYNAMITE, The Joy Formidable, Passion Pit, GROUPLOVE, Metric, Fun. and Silversun Pickups.

Overall, the concert was a success, no matter if you were at the front of the stage or in the very last row, like me.  The venue itself was a great place to hold a long concert due to the stage’s visibility to everyone, near or far, and the large area to wonder about outside the concert area.  In simpler terms, it was the American Airlines Center, but smaller scale.

Due to the nice venue, the concert was even better, but without the nice venue, the concert would have still been great due simply to the incredible bands that performed starting with a more underground group called IAMDYNAMITE.  The “band” consisted of only two men who transitioned between the various roles in the group.  That aside, they still proved they were just as good as the other, larger groups that performed that night, especially when it came to the drums.

Next came The Joy Formidable, who is actually a band all the way from London. While, personally, they were not one of my favorites, they still performed well and showed their talent well.

Third was Passion Pit, one of the more popular, well-known bands at the concert.  They were also a group who almost sounded better live than on their iTunes tracks.  The lead singer, Michael Angelakos, not only sounded incredible, but he was also entertaining to watch as he danced around the stage.  The band began their performance with their most recent hit, “Take a Walk” and ended it with their most popular song, “Sleepyhead.”

GROUPLOVE followed suite with a fun, up-beat performance that had everyone in the crowd dancing and singing along.  They included many of their popular songs such as “Itchin’ on a Photograph” and “Tongue Tied” in their performance that pleased the entire audience as well as a cover of the late Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”  While some of the members were dressed in bathrobes, the group still won the award for the most crowd pleasing and energetic performance.

The concert moved on to a darker note with a performance by renowned band, Metric.  The band is most famous for their songs “Help I’m Alive” and “Gold Guns Girls.”  While they were darker and less bright in comparison to Passion Pit and GROUPLOVE, Metric still performed incredibly well, even ending their performance with a beautiful acoustically performed song.

Next came the most popular band of the entire concert, the one that most people, including myself, were waiting for.  That band was Fun. who had an incredible performance that included amazing vocals by Nate Ruess and the crowd on their feet for the duration of the entire performance.  The performance included many songs from Some Nights, the band’s most recent album as well as favorites from their older albums such as “Barlights,” from their 2009 album Aim and Ignite.  Fun. wrapped up their amazing performance with their hits “We Are Young” and “Some Nights.”

Finally, the show ended with a performance by the smaller group Silversun Pickups.  Sadly, their performance was not up to par, thought that could be attributed to the fact that they had to follow Fun.  But even so, their performance was easily one of the worst of the concert.  The crowd was hardly involved and the performance was not the best.

Even worse, their most popular song, “Lazy Eye,” was saved until the end, forcing many to stay through the mediocre performance until they could hear their favorite song.  While they were definitely not the best, that could have also been a result of the large venue.  The group is quite small, more suited for a smaller, more intimate setting rather than a large venue.

Overall, despite a few shabby performances, the concert was a hit with incredible performances by popular bands Fun., GROUPLOVE, Metric and Passion Pit.  While not all performed their best, the concert was still an enjoyable experience, causing many concert-goers to begin getting ready for the radio station’s next annual concert, Edgefest, this spring.