Paramore: Boston fans-only live show (video & mp3s)

We were way late to the Paramore bandwagon, and only picked up on them a few weeks before Riot! hit stores this year, but for shit's sake, you knew we were gonna love this band: shamelessly pop, adorable teenage girl singer, and a hit song that bounds onto Top 40 radio despite being a) complicated, b) sung by a girl in a rock band who's not Avril Lavigne, and c) a song that casually smashes to smithereens a host of stereotypes about what nice girls are supposed to sing about. Emo's currency is misery, sure, but in "Misery Business" Hayley's selling pleasure: the guilty pleasure of stealing some douchebag's boyfriend, for one, but mainly it's about the sheer pleasure of singing for/about pleasure -- that "feeels soooooo gooooooooood" in the bridge might be 2007's most joyful moment on record.

We'd been lobbying our sister station WFNX to add "Misery Business" for months, never dreaming that they actually would -- in what we can only assume was a desperate bid to get OTD to quit badgering them about it already. Truth be told, we didn't care so much about hearing Paramore on the radio -- we just wanted to get them to come play one of FNX's secret shows and then film it. Which, unbelievably, is exactly what happened.

So: Everyone else in the office (except Mike Awesome, who pressed play on camera two) is embarassed by our love of this band. Fuck 'em. The kids are alright. One of the things we love about emo that everyone else seems to hate is that it keeps bringing better and better singers back to rock and roll from all the other places they can find work these days -- 20 years ago a girl with a voice like Hayley's wouldn't have been caught dead in a punk band, and 10 years ago she'd have been in, what, Dream or Sugababes or something. Don't get us wrong: this is a girl who can hold her own. She led singalongs like the all-ages-circuit pro she already is, took questions from the audience on the big topics (bananas or cheese? Michael Jackson or Mr. Rogers?), and from a few behind the scenes glimpses we're convinced that this girl is running her own shop: she's the one managing tempo problems and shushing the drummer, at least. Which is usually the boss's work, if we remember correctly.

WATCH: Paramore, Interview [video on YouTube or imeem]
DOWNLOAD: Paramore, CrushCrushCrush (Live in Boston 11/24/2007) [mp3]
DOWNLOAD: Paramore, Pressure (Live in Boston 11/24/2007) [mp3]
DOWNLOAD: Paramore, Misery Business (Live in Boston 11/24/2007) [mp3]