by Lillian Wright Smith
Taking Back Sunday’s Tell All Your Friends was beloved by a generation of kids in the early aughts. So the group decided to pay back their fans by playing the album top to bottom on this, the ten year anniversary tour of the album. To those that thought emo was dead: know that it was alive and thriving in Lawrence at the Granada on Saturday night. For this community the show held extra meaning as it brought back a couple of much-missed townies.
Right on time Mansions, out of Seattle, took the stage. Halfway through the set they introduced their drummer, John Momberg, a Lawrence native, to a roar of applause. Momberg, previously drummer for local band The Appleseed Cast, dipped his head in humble appreciation of the adoration. Lead singer Christopher Brower assured everyone that, other than Seattle, there’s nowhere they’d rather live than Lawrence. This was met with hearty approval from the crowd. He pointed out that Momberg had at one time worked at the Granada. Though this was a national tour, it almost felt like being at the Replay on a Tuesday night. Mansions’ grungy emo rock eased the audience into an evening that would end in thrashing. They even gave the crowd a taste of what was to come by inviting John Nolan of TBS out to join them on “Two Suits (80 Fuckin Dollars).”
Bayside, out of Long Island, New York (an area that has put out an impressive amount of emo/screamo groups including Taking Back Sunday) came on next to a crowd that was about ready to burst. Their classic punk sound translated beautifully to the stage in an energetic and sincere set. Frontman Anthony Reneri’s clear, deep voice cuts perfectly through their impressive guitar runs, all coming together with well-timed key changes and choruses that lend themselves to being repeated back by the crowd.
The group finished out the album with Lazzara actually moving through the crowd, albeit slowly, and holding the mic out for revelers to sing along. Rather than do an encore they played two previously unreleased (but no well-less known) tracks from the same era as Tell All Your Friends.
Words by Lillian Wright Smith, photos by Bethany Smith