Few bands from the emo, pop punk, and post-hardcore boom of the 2000s are more beloved or more enduring than Taking Back Sunday, whose first three LPs- 2002’s Tell All Your Friends, 2004’s Where You Want to Be, and 2006’s Louder Now– are all stone-cold classics of that era, and have undoubtedly become nostalgic millennial touchstones in the decades since. Despite some lineup shuffles from 2003-2010 (after which their “classic” lineup reformed), Taking Back Sunday have been going strong since first forming on Long Island back in 1999, and have settled into their role as emo elder statesmen in the second half of their career, continuing to tour and make some interesting and adventurous new records throughout the 2010s, while also paying respect to their roots, and undergoing anniversary runs for their classic records. Though, in their early years, the band had something of a revolving lineup and were a DIY fixture in the local post-hardcore scene, by Tell All Your Friends, they’d cemented their roster.
Their debut deeply resonated with the exploding pop punk scene, and by Where You Want to Be, TBS were becoming bona fide stars, elevating to major label status and attracting the most commercial success of their career with Louder Now. While that entire aughts pop punk and emo boom waned over the following decade, Taking Back Sunday never slowed down, releasing four additional albums over 10 years, and maturing their style to include more alternative and heartland rock influences by 2016’s Tidal Waves. Though they’ve continued to tour regularly, save for some time off due to the pandemic, the band took the longest gap of their career to make their most recent album 152, which dropped in 2023, and feels like a culmination of the preceding 25 years, both in its self-reflection and emotional resonance, as well as its alt-rock bite and pop accessibility. Since last year, the band has welcomed back guitarist Fred Mascherino to their live lineup, giving fans a chance to see the Where You Want to Be and Louder Now stuff performed by the guitarist/backing vocalist who initially helped craft it, in a configuration with both Mascherino AND the founding guitarist he had initially replaced, John Nolan (no word on whether Fred will rejoin as a full-time member, and contribute to future releases, but it would be the dream lineup if he did).
No strangers to Nashville, TBS have made their way to Music City pretty much annually for the past few years, but upon their return tonight, Sept. 16, to headline The Pinnacle, it’s with a particularly stacked supporting lineup: beloved post-hardcore and pop punk outfit Thrice, who, like Taking Back Sunday, shot to fame in the ’00s thanks to classic records like The Illusion of Safety and The Artist in the Ambulance, and have remained very active since (their most recent LP, Horizons/West, dropped last year), and Saves the Day, a trailblazing band who helped shape the entire modern emo and pop punk scene with records like 1999’s Through Being Cool (which belongs on the emo Mount Rushmore) and 2001’s Stay What You Are (their latest, 9, came out in 2018). Though they might be opening, to emo purists, Saves the Day are probably the most essential band of this whole, stellar lineup, so snag tickets here and be sure to show up early!
Taking Back Sunday, Thrice, and Saves the Day perform tonight, Sept. 16 at The Pinnacle. The show is all ages, begins at 7 p.m. (6 p.m. doors), and tickets are avaialble for $63.28-127.15.
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