The Get Up Kids / Saves the Day

live in Farmingdale (2011)

Brian Shultz

You'd think a tour with the Get Up Kids and Saves the Day would be a non-stop celebration of nostalgia. But these aren't merely cash-in reunion tours from bands who haven't recorded material in forever–the Get Up Kids recently released a new record, and Saves the Day just joined a new label, setting up to release their long, long-gestating new album, Daybreak. I mean, sure…Chris Conley told the audience about buying the Get Up Kids' first 7" as a junior in high school, recording the songs to a cassette and showing it to friends to describe what "emo" was, and Jim Suptic recalled playing an Irish pub with Coalesce on Long Island in 1997. But if you came expecting a Vagrant Records anniversary show or something, you'd be disappointed. And that was still A-OK with me.

It was a refreshing change of pace to have no opening acts–simply just two all-star caliber co-headliners playing one after the other. The Crazy Donkey drew back the curtain, and Saves the Day modestly walked out on stage to raucous applause. The opening, punchy sway of "Firefly" received a mildly enthusiastic response, but the audience let loose for "Shoulder to the Wheel", climbing atop each other and bouncing around. It was here, and a closing trio of "Holly Hox, Forget Me Nots", rarity "A Drag in D Flat" and "At Your Funeral" where the crowd was the most joyous. In between, you could hear visible sighs and audible aggravation whenever Conley mentioned they'd play a new song from Daybreak (they played seven of its 11 tracks, in fact), which ranged from easy-going power-pop finger-snappers ("Deranged & Desperate") to relatively noisy dirges ("Z"). A frustrated and unmoved audience whose cries for "Hold" and "My Sweet Fracture" was still rewarded with more than half of 2001's Stay What You Are getting play, Conley's solo rendition of "Three Miles Down" (from 1997's melodic hardcore underdog Can't Slow Down), and their two best B-sides (the aforementioned "D Flat" and "Sell My Old Clothes, I'm Off to Heaven"). Hell, songs from 2003's maligned In Reverie even got big responses.

Conley newest bandmates–guitarist Arun Bali, bassist Rodrigo Palma, and former Somerset drummer Claudio Rivera–didn't recoil in the shadows, but they didn't try to overtake Conley's rightful spotlight either. Bali helped shred noise on "Z" and added a cool layer to "Can't Stay the Same", while Rivera thrashed about and drove the tempo well for faster or more jubilant fare like "The End" (whose response was surprisingly tepid) and "Shoulder to the Wheel".

If you're wondering, by the way, Conley's vocals seem to have reverted back to the higher-pitched, nasal wheeze of 2006's Sound the Alarm era. He gets a lot of backhanded compliments via fans wishing he was still 16, but he sounded 13 when he yelled, "Thank you so fucking much!"

Set list (7:31-8:53):