After last seeing Yellowcard at the When We Were Young Festival last year, we were super excited to see them again, especially since it has been 8 years since they last toured the UK!
We watched them at the O2 academy, slightly anxious as last time we were here was for Frank Carter & The Sex Pistols and we all know how negative that experience was! After checking out the merch (mostly just t-shirts that are all on sale on their website, nothing special or any vinyl) and getting a drink we got ourselves great spots near the centre front.
First up was This Wild Life, a multi instrumental duo with a wide range of instruments, from Long Beach, California. Although their set was mostly acoustic and mellow they still managed to get the crowd going with fun jokes and stories.
During their 7 song set playing, they told the story of how they met, flyered a Yellowcard gig, and got fired, they also played a ukelele, a theramin, guitar, bass, drums, and did a cover of Taking Back Sunday’s song ‘Cute Without The E’ for such a mellow sounding duo they sure put on a great show to begin the night, our favourites of this set were ‘Clouded’, ‘Positively Negative’ and ‘History’
Next up this evening was Story Of The Year, a screamo/emo band from St. Louis, Missouri, we were surprised to see that they were supporting Yellowcard as they had a big fall out back in 2005, but that is now resolved and we are glad for it as the two bands make a great combo.
Beginning thier set with ‘Tear Me To Pieces’ they played 10 songs in total and got the crowd jumping, dancing, crowd surfing, and mosh pits! Although they kept crowd interactions to a minimum they still made the effort to tell us a little of thier history and throw in a few joke comments.
Story Of The Year put on an energetic performance for their whole set, playing ”Anthem of Our Dying Day’ and ‘In the Shadows’ and finally finishing with thier biggest hit ‘Until the Day I Die’ I don’t think we (or the crowd) stopped moving from beginning to end and they really got us pumped for Yellowcard!
The crowd constantly moving was just a taster for what was to come. Yellowcard began thier set with ‘Way Away’ and that was it, the crowd were singing and mosh pits were forming right from the beginning! We think we must have jumped and danced over the entirety of the front of the crowd as absolutely no one was still, it was definitely the most fluid crowd we have ever been in!
Yellowcard played 17 songs, most off the album Ocean Avenue as it was the 20th anniversary tour for that album, they also added in ‘Lights and Sounds’ and a new unreleased song ‘Better Days’ and predictably finishing the night with ‘Ocean Avenue’.
The night was absolutely incredible other than one annoyingly heckler that was stood right near us, luckily lead singer Ryan Key ignored him while talking about how much the album, Ocean Avenue, changed their lives.
Ryan also told us about how he toured with The Wild Life when he was perusing a solo career after Yellowcard split up in 2017. The band never thought they’d never perform together again, never mind making new music, but we are incredibly grateful they are back together! There was also hints at a 2025 tour, and you bet we will be there for it, we also hope they will be playing at a festival too! 🤞
St. Jimmy and Rex 🖤☠️
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