when we were young 2024! :3

xxherlastwalkxx 11/13/2023

ok. normally i wouldn't care. i never really paid attention to when we were young in the past because i think it goes against the point of diy, which i feel is pretty important to emo, or at least to certain subgenres/styles of emo. i'll defend the __ is for lovers festival because it was clear hawthorne heights was doing it out of love for the scene. I can't say the same about live nation. that being said, i'm not here to give long-winded rants about capitalism. not today, at least. the reason i bring this up is because like 99% of the bands on the roster are playing full albums. which i have opinions on and, after all, this whole website is just me and my opinions! hahahahahh!!!

i've printed the lineup above, it's probably a bit small if you're on a computer, sorry everyone. i have to print small images for the mobile users in the crowd. click here to go to the festival's website and see the lineup more closely. anyway, i feel a little weird about this lineup... like there's kind of an insane range in terms of style? don't get me wrong, i love how emo embraces a variety of genres, but to be completely honest some of this stuff is really light lmao. i'm totally going to sound like a 60 year old white man complaining about how music isn't what it used to be, but i'll never understand how some of the poppier stuff is called emo when it's only arguably sad to begin with. i'm not trying to gatekeep (even though i kind of totally am. my bad), but the broadest definition you could give emo is "sad music" (this is maybe a slight exaggeration but you get the idea), and it's just kind of crazy to have some of these bands on the same lineup as like emery. lmao. i'll save the "what is emo" debate for another time, but tldr i don't get it. maybe i'm just too young to understand, idk. after all, the festival is called "when we were young" and i found my chemical romance in like 2017 lmao. insert "i was born in the wrong generation" comment here.

ok ok erin we get it you don't like mayday parade. just talk about the lineup. firstly, obviously, we have my chemical romance playing the entirety of the black parade. this is actually kind of cool. it'll be like a the black parade is dead but like 16 years later and maybe a little gayer (if that's even possible). mcr is still a great band live and their albums have aged pretty well in my opinion, so i'm excited for this one. definitely going to be on youtube that whole afternoon just refreshing the page until someone uploads a video of the set. i will say, i would love to see some more three cheers content sometime, but i understand that the black parade is a more iconic album.

ok. you have no idea how excited i am for underoath playing they're only chasing safety. (my top three emo albums are discovering the waterfront, they're only chasing safety and still searching, so we're probably getting dedicated paragraphs for all of those. XD) i'm really sad that i can't find it, but there was a review on rate your music, probably in a list that i don't recognize anymore, i'm literally devestated. please please PLEASE if you know what i'm talking about and you know where to find it email me a link to it and i will love you forever (i already love you guys, of course. just a little bit less than i love the person who emails me that link :P). anyway. the review was seeyouspacecowboy's the romance of affliction (i love you connie), and the person was talking about the aaron gillespie feature of "intersecting storylines to the same tragedy," saying that his vocals on that song sounded "more underoath than anything underoath has actually done recently." it's funny because it's true. all that is to say that the idea that we might get some 2006y underoath performances is very exciting. like i'm talking about aaron's kind-of-screaming and drum parts that are way cooler than the ones on the studio recording and spencer hopefully cupping the mic a little less so it sounds like he's insanely loud instead of just sounding like him cupping the mic. i love underoath but man. that poor microphone. this is also, of course, just another opportunity for them to play "the impact of reason" which in my not humble opinion is their best song. it would be cool to get some define the great line content, but they're only chasing safety is obviously a fantastic album and i still look forward to it.

going down the lineup, there's nothing i feel the need to single out for a while... chiodos and thursday could be promising, hawthorne heights doing the silence in black and white is cool. i think it'll be cool to hear that album with more polished production. i'm a little sad saosin is playing their self titled instead of translating the name but that's an ep so i get it. i am curious to know if this performance will be with anthony green, i mean he'll already be there with ls dunes so maybe. speaking of ls dunes, what are they doing? like they and fall out boy just don't have albums next to their names. which is really hard to decipher because ls dunes only has one album and fall out boy has... idk a lot. i never counted. if they do an album, i'll be interested to know which one. probably from under the cork tree, but i feel like infinity on high would have a chance.

ok. ok. what the hell. why is the used playing in love and death. i don't even care if that one was more culturally significant than their self titled, i assume that's why they're playing what they're playing, but i would've thought "the taste of ink" alone would be enough to get them to play their self titled. i like in love and death, it's an alright album, but it is nowhere near the used. yeah i'm sad about that one.

alright. i think it's pretty obvious that silverstein is my favorite band. so it goes without saying that i'm so excited for them to play the entirety of discovering the waterfront again. there's a video from their discovering the waterfront 15th anniversary tour on youtube where they play a set of their hits, do four or five acoustic songs, then play the whole album and omg the amount of times i've seen that video is unhealthy. silverstein sounds better than ever live, and sometimes i wish they still sounded like they did at exo fest in 2005, but they still sound amazing. i think it's incredible how their sound has evolved so much since discovering the waterfront and that they still sound like 2020s silverstein when they play it and it's still good! like they sound different but they sound just as good on their old stuff as they used to and i love them for that. even like underoath, who have always sounded great live, sound super different now and it is admittedly a little weird sometimes. what can i say. silverstein is the best emo band for a reason.

the next one i want to talk about is senses fail with their album still searching, which actually ties into my last comment pretty well. while i love this album, songs like "shark attack" and "everyday is a struggle" are some of the most impactful emo songs i've ever heard, but oh man. they sound different now. the weird thing is that their production quality has always been pretty good (at least everything after let it enfold you), which is usually the issue for older bands who are still going. i don't know how to describe it, but they sound different now and it's a little off-putting for me. look up their joshua tree performance on youtube if you don't know what i'm talking about. i think the thing is the classic case of emo vocalists learning how to actually sing -- they'll record some albums and really stretch their range and ability, and at some point later in their career they like learn how to actually sing properly or something and the old stuff isn't hard for them anymore. like i'm not saying that emo singers should intentionally kill their voice, but it's just kind of sad sometimes how a band's early albums will be super energetic and the performances will be super passionate and then when the band gets older they've done music for so long that the sort of diy feeling of their early days are kind of just gone. i don't want to sound mean here. it's just something i've noticed, even if it is a little sad. like honestly the scariest part of aging for me is the idea of actually sounding good at music. especially as a vocalist, the thought of my voice changing is just really crazy to think about. i don't want to get to my life is not a waiting room before i get to live out my from the depths of dreams, you know? i get kind of existentialist about it sometimes. sorry lmao i know this paragraph was supposed to be about senses fail.

idk i'm kind of sad now lol. not much else to say about the rest of the bands. 30h!3 on the lineup is awesome. um yeah. if you got this far thanks for listening to my gay little rant :P

update i totally forgot to mention emery! my bad lmao. all i want to say is that emery is awesome live and other than mcr, silverstein and underoath, them playing the weak's end is the most exciting part of the lineup. their music is so good live. kind of makes listening to the studio recordings a little sad lol.

another update. i did not realize how expensive tickets were. i get that i mostly go to local shows where tickets are like fifteen dollars at most, but damn. i guess if you grew up with these albums i get it, i mean i would give so much for the chance to see they're only chasing safety and discovering the waterfront live, but this just feels a little ridiculous. i'm not going to rant on the capitalization of third wave emo, though i can and probably will at some point, but it's just crazy to think about sometimes. i mean, tickets for silverstein's 10th anniversary this is how the wind shifts tour are like thirty dollars. and those thirty dollars will get you three silverstein sets. three. that's probably two hours and maybe fifteen minutes of silverstein. for thirty dollars. hell, i went to massachusetts is for lovers for like thirty five dollars, and that got me four of the bands that'll be at when we were young 2024. sure, there were no whole albums being played, but my point is that these bands still care about diy music and still care about their fans. i doubt the bands have any say over ticket prices here, but it really just says a lot. idk. maybe it would seem more worth it if i listened to more of the bands on the lineup than i do, but it's still just crazy to me. i mean warped tour was like thirty five dollars. and that's warped tour. the warped tour. literally the most popular and most important festival in the emo scene. i don't think it matters that these bands are older and have stable, dedicated fanbases now. the fans deserve better (and live nation deserves worse). i know it's terrible how often i reference the real emo copypasta, but emo does belong to hardcore and to punk. and capitalizing on punk in any form, even if it's more popular or more socially acceptable forms of the genre, goes against the entire point. i'm going to stop complaining about money now. if you're going to be there, you should enjoy yourself and tbh i envy the chance to see many of those sets, i just think it should be recognized how the face of the scene is changing, and i don't think anyone wants the image of emo to be $325 general admission. maybe this is what senses fail meant when they talked about new jersey falling into the atlantic.