Bayside After 20 Years: Fresh As Ever With the New Record to Prove It at Chicago's House of Blues
After taking over a year off from touring because of COVID-19, band re-emerged in mid-to-late 2021 like the cicadas we get here in the midwest, teeming with energy and vaccines. Awaiting them was an audience almost begging to fork over their disposable income to see not only their favorite bands, but any band period, play some live music.
Part of it was the natural cycle of how these things have worked since the beginning of pop culture. Part of it was being able to revisit our musical golden years while locked indoors for a year without much else to do. Whatever the combination was, we emerged from lockdowns with the late 90's/early 2000's being back in a huge way. For us elder millennials right around 40 years old, it wasn't any fun celebrating the 25th or 30th anniversary of the albums we grew up loving. That's just too much time. Makes you feel old.
But 20 years? Celebrating the post-Y2K albums you spent hours chatting on AIM about and incorporating cryptic lyrics from in your away messages? THAT'S the kind of nostalgia we were absolutely ready for. The result was a massive surge over the last few years of tours celebrating the 20th anniversary of some of the landmark albums of the early 2000's. Emo and nu-metal bands are eating well in ways they haven't since Warped Tour/Taste of Chaos.
And then we have Bayside, bucking the trend completely out of nowhere. It's 2024, perfect timing for them the pop punk veterans to tour behind the anniversary of 2004's debut Sirens and Condolences. It's a great album and Bayside has maintained a huge following for two decades releasing consistent and high-quality work, usually only going 2-3 years between albums pre-COVID. Touring on that album would have been an easy slam dunk for them and us. Instead, Bayside released what might be their best album yet and is touring behind their new material instead of relying solely on nostalgia this trip around the US. With fellow early-2000's emo-rock veterans Finch and Armor for Sleep (not to mention newcomers Winona Fighter in tow), the Worse Things Than Being Alive Tour made its long-awaited stop at Chicago's House of Blues.
Winona Fighter. Holy shit, Winona Fighter.
With a band name that good, you'd better be a great band to back it up and hot damn, is Winona Fighter a great band. Having spent a good amount of time listening to them in the lead-up to this show, my expectations were pretty high coming in and they took those expectations, ripped them to shreds, threw those shreds into the air, and then took the bar I had set for them and bashed me over the head with it.
I'm having a hard time thinking of the words to do justice to what it's like to see a Winona Fighter live set. It's like an energetic musical slap in the face that lasts for a half hour straight but then as soon as you stop getting slapped all you want is to get slapped again twice as hard. Which is exactly what happens.
If I may speak for everyone at the House of Blues for their set (and I think that I can because who are you to stop me?), saying "we want more Winona Fighter" is accurate for a multitude of reasons. First off, they don't have a full-length debut yet so all we have to subsist on is a handful of head banging and fist pumping singles so we literally want more of their music. Second, their set was way too short, but I would also say that if they played for an entire hour plus, that's how good they are. Lastly, the merch line for their table after their set was way longer than any I've seen in my years of coming to this venue, so there were for sure a good number of fans going home empty-handed.
The buzz for this band is building. They opened the night 2 full hours before Bayside was set to hit the stage and played to a mostly-full venue. I overheard two other photographers in the photo pit and several fans at the barricade essentially saying "I will see that band every time they come to town" and I am right there with them. Every second you're reading this is a second you might not be listening to their music. Let me lend you a hand:
When you look at it on paper, Armor for Sleep have the pedigree of emo-rock royalty. Debuted some time between 2001 - 2005? Check (2003's Dream to Make Believe). From New Jersey (super important)? Check. Harder edged sound that's much less Fall Out Boy and Jimmy Eat World and much more Taking Back Sunday and Silverstein? Check. But it's not just their pedigree that has built and maintained a loyal and rabid fanbase for over 2 decades despite a 15 year gap between albums (2007's Smile for Them wasn't followed up until 2022's The Rain Museum). They put on a hell of a live show and can put together a setlist that can at once be heartfelt and something you can listen to while smashing an old television with an aluminum bat behind a department store.
The band's live set leaned heavily into their breakout album, 2005's What to Do When You Are Dead with over half their set dedicated to their sophomore effort. Longtime fans of the album were rewarded with 'Remember to Feel Real' and 'Car Underwater' bookending their performance. But whether it was their material off ...Dead or the limited selection from their other three albums their set touched on, the band has never sounded or looked better, absolutely throwing themselves into their performance and headbanging some of the best rock and roll hair in the business while they were at it.
I don't want to go full "KIDS THESE DAYS", but whenever I think of Finch, I think of a time that current generations will never know the frustrations of: pre-streaming era music. Growing up in the Chicagoland area, I was spoiled to have Q101 as the big rock/alternative station in my market. When I moved down to central Illinois to go to college, I got stuck with an inferior station that heavily leaned into nu-metal. I still kept tabs on the Q101 website and would regularly peruse their weekly "Top 10 Most Requested Songs" list. For the longest time after its initial release, I kept seeing the same song climb the list week after week after week:
Finch - What It Is To Burn
There was just one problem: I couldn't listen to it. My rock station didn't have the song in their rotation. iTunes was still another year or so away. Outside of going out and buying the actual CD (which was another 35 minute drive for me because I went to college in a place where "middle of nowhere" would be considered an upgrade), there was no way for me to hear this up and coming band and their chart-rising single. Maybe that anticipation helped because when I finally got my hands on What It Is To Burn, it was one of my favorite albums of 2002.
22 years later and I finally got to see the Temecula quartet in person for the first time. Two decades is no short amount and time is a cruel and unforgiving mistress. But watching Finch take the stage at House of Blues and rip through a tight, heavy 9 song set, you would swear it was still the glory days of Warped Tour. If Armor for Sleep was less Fall Out Boy and more Silverstein when it comes to the heaviness of their style of emo, then Finch is less Armor for Sleep and more Senses Fail and Thrice, really embracing the heavier edges of the genre. This was fully on display as the band spent the majority of their set playing songs off both ...Burn and its follow up Say Hello to Sunshine. Nate Barcalow's vocals are both as screamy and as clear as they've always been. And as much as Alex Linares and Randy Strohmeyer's dual guitar attack are front and center of Finch's sonic assault and still crunch with the best of them, it's the underrated rhythm of both drummer Alex Pappas and bassist Kenny Finn that really provide their songs with the crashing momentum they're known for, something that's almost overwhelming in a live setting.
The notion that it's uncool to wear the shirt of a band whose show you are attending has always been incredibly stupid. Buying and wearing a band shirt is one of the most visible ways for you to show support for a band, so it seems like their live shows would be the place it's most natural to wear their shirt. Look, we can go on and on about the harm done over the last few decades by things that have come out of Jeremy Piven's mouth, but the good news is that it's a trend that seems to be losing steam. Over the last 5-10 years or so of going to concerts, I've seen a huge uptick in the number of people wearing the shirts of the very bands they are there to see and no one giving them any shit for it (because again, why would anyone care?).
So when I say "I saw a shit ton of people wearing Bayside shirts/hoodies at the Bayside show", it shouldn't be a shock. And that fact in a vacuum wasn't a shock. What was the shock was just how many people were decked out in their Bayside Best. People wearing Bayside gear outnumbered those not wearing it by a considerable margin, which is not the norm at shows I attend.
It makes a lot of sense. Like I said, you wear the shirt of a band to show your support and fandom. For a band that's been around for twenty years without any non-pandemic breaks, they're going to have a large and engaged fanbase. But the other effect of being such a popular band for as long as they have is that they're now ingrained into people's lives for all time. These aren't just albums that people listened to in their formative years. Bayside is a band that a good chunk of the audience has been listening to for either half of their entire life or in some cases, much longer. As I made my way into the venue before the show, it was interesting just how many people walking with me and standing with me in line were talking about this concert as a reason to 'relive their younger days'.
For an audience craving a throwback to their youth, Bayside was more than up for the challenge. Kicking off their set with 'Pigsty', the lead single off 2015's Cult, and following that up with deep cut 'Montauk' off the band's 2005 self-titled breakout and 'How to Ruin Everything (Patience)' off their brand new album There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive, the band showed off their prowess in ripping through material spanning their entire career. Anthony Raneri's voice sounds as distinct as it always has, cleanly sitting in a higher register without taking on the nasally sound of many of his early 2000's contemporaries. When you hear his voice, you know it's a Bayside song, and that signature sound is stronger than ever.
Shredding right at his side the entire night was Jack O'Shea, wielding an Explorer straight out of the hair metal 80's with the finger-tapping solos to match. Looking every part the 'bassist for a rock band' with his arms covered in tattoos as he threw down heavy-as-hell basslines while prowling his side of the stage, the imposing image betrayed by the smile that rarely left his face the entire night. Holding it all together the entire night was drummer Chris Gugliemo, who was able to amp his sound up to sounding like 2-3 drum sets stacked on each other on songs like 'Go To Hell', making them sound way bigger than the venue holding them in.
No matter what they played, the band sounded 100% fresh. The benefit of having two decades and 9 albums you're pulling from in any given show is that you can stuff your setlist with the songs everyone's expecting to see live ('Devotion and Desire', 'They're Not Horses') while still making room for a few deep cuts to be thrown into the mix. For a crowd that was crazed during the start of every song the entire night, they kicked things up another notch of five when the band knocked the dust off of songs that rarely see the light of the live stage like 'The New Flesh' and 'I and I'.
Here's the awkward part...this tour only has a handful of dates left. There's a good chance that if you read this, Bayside already came through your area with this tour. On one hand, that sucks if you didn't catch them. On the other hand, they just had a brand new album come out and out would be weird if they didn't tour another leg or hop on some festivals to keep the engine running. Either way, let this be a lesson that Bayside is not to be missed when you have the opportunity to see them. They're doing the Benjamin Button thing where their sound, both in the studio and in person, is getting better as they get older.
At this rate, their eventual 2038 album will sweep the Grammys as we all ascend to being absorbed into a giant AI dominion.
I bet their streaming bitrates are pretty decent though.
Bayside Setlist - House of Blues, Chicago 3.29.24
Pigsty
Montauk
How to Ruin Everything (Patience)
Interrobang
Two Letters
Go To Hell
Already Gone
They're Not Horses, They're Unicorns
Masterpiece
Castaway
Prayers
Don't Call Me Peanut
Duality
The New Flesh
I and I
Landing Feet First
Sick, Sick, Sick
Blame It on Bad Luck
The Devils
They Looked Like Strong Hands
Devotion and Desire