Concert Review: Hot Chelle Rae

American group Hot Chelle Rae performed at Auckland’s Vector Arena on Saturday night. The band first visited New Zealand earlier in the year as support for Taylor Swift for her three sold-out Speak Now Tour shows in March. The boys loved us so much, they promised to come back to do a tour of their own!

Hot Chelle Rae is Ryan Follese – the awesome lead singer in ridiculously tight blue pants, guitarist Nash Overstreet, bassist Ian Keaggy and drummer Jamie Follese. A new addition to their performance ensemble was keyboardist Brady Leffler. They put on an amazing 85 min set that included all their hits like ‘Honestly’, ‘Tonight Tonight’ and ‘I Like It Like That.’ Ryan and Nash slowed it down for a bit, going all ‘Nashville’ on the audience and played their very first song they had written together, called ‘Emo.’

UK X Factor superstar Cher Lloyd joined them downunder and the pint-sized singer belted out her tracks ‘Swagger Jagger’, ‘Want U Back’ and new single ‘Oath’ while strutting from one side of the stage to the other with her sparkly microphone in hand and when she spoke to the audience, loud screaming could be heard as her adorable English accent rang across the arena.

Kiwi’s very own boyband made by The Edge radio station, Titanium were first to hit the stage and come off a nationwide tour of their own. The boys impressed the Hot Chelle Rae boys, as Nash was seen tweeting that he wished Titanium could have come on the rest of HCR’s tour overseas. Titanium put on an awesome set.

Hot Chelle Rae definitely know how to put on a show, they are even better live (which is truly hard to find!), if they ever do come back – which I’m sure they will as they love it here – they are a must to see live. Cher Lloyd would be an awesome singer to see a full set with so hopefully she comes back here as well.

You can grab Hot Chelle Rae’s album Whatever out in stores now as well as Cher Lloyd’s new album Sticks + Stones.