Paramore Rolls Out 15 Years of Hits at the Opry House

2023.2.6.Paramore.Opry.AngelinaC-11.jpg — Photo: Angelina Castillo

The last time Paramore played in their hometown was at 2018’s Art + Friends, a mini festival at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium meant as a final send-off after a year of touring their fifth studio album After Laughter. On Monday, the band returned to Music City for the inverse: an album release party for This Is Why, due Feb. 10.

“Do you know how much has changed since 2018?” said frontwoman Hayley Williams, surveying the crowd at the Grand Ole Opry House. “Frankly, in this city, not enough.”

It’d be silly to try to describe how true that statement was for the out-of-town audience members, as Nashville has a confusing recent history of rapid development combined with slow social reform (see: the Scene’s news section). Fortunately, Paramore’s performing chops remained unchanged since their Nashville farewell. The band — which has also remained relatively stable since the last album cycle by maintaining its core of Williams, guitarist Taylor York and drummer Zac Farro — looked comfortable and raring to go on the Opry stage as they prepared to launch their sixth LP.

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Following a warmup set from Nashville indie-rockers Louis Prince, whose 2022 album Flounder rides a post-disco groove, Paramore’s two-hour set kicked off with two new songs. The crowd already knew the words to “This Is Why,” the titular lead single for the new record, and if anyone in the stands didn’t know the words to recent release “C’est Comme Ça,” the song has enough “nah-nah-nahs” that they were able to fake it. Both recall the danceable, syncopated rhythms of After Laughter, tinged with the dark, distorted guitar tones of early Paramore.

As the band played a festival-esque set of hits and fan favorites from nearly every Paramore release (except their 2004 debut All We Know Is Falling), it became clear that the album release show wasn’t necessarily an album debut event. That would come Tuesday, as the band scheduled several listening parties at record stores across the country, including at Grimey’s over on the East Side. That wasn’t a problem for most fans, who alternatively danced (to After Laughter tunes like “Rose Colored Boy”) or rocked (to songs like 2007’s “That’s What You Get”) their little emo butts off. Among the visuals projected behind the group were clips of a dilapidated-looking Rivergate Mall, presumably chosen to evoke a sort of bummed-out nostalgia as Williams & Co. sang through more than 15 years of angst-ridden lyrics.

Paramore has been delivering stellar, high-energy live performances since its members were teenagers, but there was an easy, confident chemistry in the air as the current group interacted onstage Monday. Past Paramore tours and releases have brought lineup changes and often-messy interpersonal drama for the band, but This Is Why marks a Paramore first in that realm: The core lineup has not changed since the previous release. Much of the touring band remains the same from previous tours, too, with newcomer Brian Robert Jones taking up rhythm guitar alongside bassist Joey Howard, Logan MacKenzie on keys and guitar and Joseph Mullen on percussion. York in particular looked infectiously in the zone, with enough hops and headbangs for the rest of the band combined. His brother Justin York, who previously toured with the band on rhythm guitar but left amicably in 2022, was spotted in the Opry House crowd.

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There was still room for some twists, though. Midway through the set, the instrumentalists slipped away to allow Williams to perform two acoustic songs solo on the legendary Opry stage.

“This is something that I wanted to do,” she said, “and I’ll be honest with you: I’m scared shitless right now.”

Her first song, “In the Mourning,” was a lesser-heard track from the 2011 Singles Club EP. The EP, best known for the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack song “Monster,” was the band’s first release after Zac and brother Josh Farro left the band and left the future of the group in doubt.

“When I was telling the guys that I wanted to play [this song], Zac was like, ‘I don’t know that song,’ ” Williams said. “I was like, ‘Bro, that’s because it’s about you, man.’ When Zac originally left the band, it was my first real brush with grief, and it just fell like the world was falling apart.”

The second was another treat for longtime fans and a tribute to a recently departed legend. Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough” featured in Paramore live sets as far back as 2009, when the band first played the Ryman, and Williams strummed away with a smile as she belted the 1966 hit. It was her first time playing solo since she was 16, she said, noting that her hands were shaking during soundcheck earlier in the day.

“I was like, there’s never been a better portrayal for why I never want to be a solo artist,” Williams recalled with a laugh. “I love playing with my band, with my guys.”

The group then rapidly shifted gears into “Boogie Juice” from Farro’s solo project HalfNoise. Farro hammed it up as the lead singer, donning a sparkly Western shirt, black cowboy hat and Garth Brooks-style headset mic as Williams banged away on some congas. He slid back onto the drum kit for “Told You So,” recent release “The News” and the Grammy-winning “Ain’t It Fun” before the band left the stage for a quick wardrobe change and counted in for After Laughter’s “Caught in the Middle.”

Then came “Running Out of Time,” the only This Is Why song Paramore played Monday that hadn’t been released before the show. Lyrically, the track is about Williams’ chronic tardiness: “It’s really not that deep, unless you want to think about the planet dying,” she said. Musically, the song fit in with the others we had heard so far from This Is Why, dripping with Aughts rock moodiness. In pre-album interviews, Williams noted that on the new record, the band drew from early influences including English rockers Bloc Party.

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“Number six — we did it,” she said. “I hope you love it, and I hope you make all the best memories to it.”

Five years ago at Art + Friends, Paramore retired arguably their most memorable song, “Misery Business,” with Williams explaining that she was uncomfortable singing a song with the line “Once a whore / You’re nothing more.” After reflecting on the song’s legacy and ultimately deciding that it still held value as one that so many fans loved, Williams unretired the song during a duet with Billie Eilish last spring at Coachella.

“Just about five minutes after I got canceled for saying the word ‘whore’ in a song, all of TikTok decided that it was OK,” Williams said during an October performance. “Make it make sense.”

Williams leaned into the past controversy when teasing their finale Monday.

“You know we got one more.” Bated breath. “You ready to get canceled with us?” Expectant cheers. Then: “I’m about to be such a whore for this song.”

Williams quoted Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “W.A.P.” — “There’s some whores in this house!” — over the instrumental intro to “Misery Business,” and together she and the band showcased why the song sent them rocketing into the upper echelons of pop-punk royalty. The performance had everything: Farro’s effortlessly chunky drumming, York inexplicably appearing in massive-legged JNCOs, the band reviving their tradition of inviting a fan up to sing the bridge, Williams flashing her bra at the crowd at the chorus. Paramore was back home, and in their final tune-up before This Is Why and the start of another massive tour, they looked ready to take on the world once again.

Set List