“Don’t pay to come here and sing! Let ME do the singing!”

That was the message that Angels & Airwaves lead vocalist and guitarist, Tom DeLonge, screamed to the audience on Dec 7.

DeLonge’s message was met with laughter and loud cheers from the mostly teenage audience at the University Cultural Centre, which is located at the campus of the National University of Singapore.

Known for his notorious jesting while in his former band Blink 182, DeLonge, who turns 33 this December, definitely cracked the audience up with his interaction with them.

Spewing out hilarious, slightly rude comments at the AVA concert was certainly not a shock to many who were once fans of Blink 182. In fact, the audience hardly took any offence and just carried on cheering or answering DeLonge even though he made jokes about their ‘mamas’!

Interactivity aside, AVA definitely rocked the house down with songs from both their albums We Don’t Need To Whisper, which was released in May 2006 and debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 chart, and I-Empire, which was released this year and debuted at #9 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Belting out popular radio hits such as “Everything’s Magic“, “Breathe”, “Sirens” and “The Adventure“, the concert was certainly a crowd-pleaser as everyone stood for the entire one-and-a-quarter hour concert to sing and clap along with the band. The fans certainly provided the atmosphere by acting as ‘back-up singers’ for the band when they screamed out the lyrics of the songs.

In between the songs, DeLonge certainly didn’t stop entertaining the audience with his crazy comments!

While the band played “Distraction”, a hit from their first album, DeLonge got the audience to sing the line “I’ll be yours”. When the song ended, ardent fans were still singing the same line and DeLonge couldn’t help but poke fun at them.

“What are you singing?! The song is over!” Pointing to the group in front of him, DeLonge announced to this audience that “there’s this group here making up their own [song]!”, much to the laughter and amusement of everyone present.

To the delight of the everyone in the house, AVA didn’t just play their own songs. They thrilled the crowd when they played one from Box Car Racer, as both DeLonge and David Kennedy, the other AVA guitarist, were former members of the band. Fans went wild at the hit and were rocking out to the music while enthusiastically singing the lyrics together with the band at the top of their voices.

Despite the UCC only being half-filled, the AVA certainly didn’t disappoint. Fans chanted ‘AVA’ and requested for an encore for around 3 minutes before the band came back on again.

“We are gonna dedicate these last 2 songs to your mum!” exclaimed DeLonge, as he once again elicited giggles from his audience.

Towards the end of the encore, DeLonge provided even more entertainment.

This time, it was directed at bassist Matt Wachter, who actually ran behind drummer Adam “Atom” Willard in order to hide from DeLonge! “Don’t hide, don’t hide…!” said DeLonge, who tried to make Wachter stay by his side.

It was to the amusement of the audience when DeLonge loudly declared, “Matt is gay!” and continued his crazy antics by asking guys in the front row if they were gay. Of course, being enthusiastic fans, the guys played along and admitted their sexual orientation.

“When I sing something, you sing it back!” DeLonge screamed to the very willing audience just before launching into a made-up song that poked fun at Wachter’s sexual orientation.

It was the entertainment provided by DeLonge together with the fabulous music of AVA that made the concert a huge hit with everyone in the house.

Leaving their screaming fans for the night with a loud “Thank you Singapore for coming to the show!”, this UrbanWire writer is convinced that AVA certainly rocked the UCC down and left their fans in awe of a band that not only provided great music, but also crazily hilarious stand-up comedy!