Show Review: Taking Back Sunday Celebrates 20 Years As A Band in San Francisco
Taking Back Sunday performing at The Warfield in San Francisco, CA. April 14, 2019. Photo Credit: Jared Stossel
Taking Back Sunday
w/ Frank Iero and the Future Violents
The Warfield
San Francisco, CA
April 14, 2019
Photos and review by Jared Stossel
It is astounding when you realize that Taking Back Sunday have been a band for twenty years. But then, you look back and realize just how many times you’ve seen them live, how many records they’ve put out, and it makes sense. The time has just flown by. Despite numerous lineup changes and experimentation in sound over the years, Taking Back Sunday is a band that has persevered through the hardest times of this scene, and it made their twentieth anniversary celebration all the more special when they stopped at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre for a two-night stand this past weekend.
On both nights of their two night residency, the band played their debut album, Tell All Your Friends, from front to back. Shortly after concluding the last track, the band did a coin flip where they would play one of two albums from their career: their sophomore album Where You Want To Be, or their third album Louder Now (which features the iconic track “MakeDamnSure”.) Night one proved victorious for Louder Now, and Where You Want To Be was performed on the following evening (the night we were in attendance).
The show was opened by none other than Frank Iero, a veteran artist of this scene (most well known for his tenure as the rhythm guitarist for now-defunct My Chemical Romance). Iero has been making waves as a solo artist over the last several years, with each album featuring a new band lineup and take on his sound. This time around, he’s dubbed his project Frank Iero and the Future Violents, and his half-hour set was filled with punk-grunge rock that is reminiscent of the days when pop-punk and grunge ruled the radio airwaves. Iero fits right in though, as the crowd up front screams every word back. His shows are consistent in quality, whether opening for a large theater or performing on his own (we’ve covered his time performing at clubs like Slim’s, Bottom of the Hill, and The Chapel in the past). With a new album on the horizon this may, the Future Violents may be poised to take Iero’s music to an entirely new level.
Taking Back Sunday took the stage for a two-hour set at 9:15. Other than a few anecdotes thrown in here and there by frontman Adam Lazzara, the New York-based five-piece powered through two full albums that defined the beginnings of their career. Louder Now may have catapulted them into the mainstream, but Taking Back Sunday earned their stripes with Tell All Your Friends and Where You Want To Be (this isn’t the first time the band have done a tour in support of TAYF either, if that gives you any indication of the monumental success the album has garnered with age).
The monumental two-hour set concluded with a standalone track from their most recent album, Tidal Wave (“You Can’t Look Back”), a single from their greatest hits album released earlier this year, Twenty (“All Ready To Go”), and of course, Louder Now’s “What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost?” and “MakeDamnSure”. No matter what iteration you’ve seen them in, Taking Back Sunday have continued to stand the test of time, and are sure to remain a dominant force in the alternative scene for years to come. Twenty years is only the beginning.
Taking Back Sunday Set List
Tell All Your Friends
You Know How I Do
Bike Scene
Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)
There's No 'I' in Team
Great Romances of the 20th Century
Ghost Man on Third
Timberwolves at New Jersey
The Blue Channel
You're So Last Summer
Head Club
Where You Want to Be
Set Phasers to Stun
Bonus Mosh Pt. II
A Decade Under the Influence
This Photograph Is Proof (I Know You Know)
The Union
New American Classic
I Am Fred Astaire
One-Eighty by Summer
Number Five With a Bullet
Little Devotional
…Slowdance on the Inside
Encore
You Can't Look Back
What's It Feel Like to Be a Ghost?
All Ready to Go
MakeDamnSure
Taking Back Sunday
www.takingbacksunday.com
www.facebook.com/TakingBackSunday
@TBSOfficial
Frank Iero and the Future Violents
www.frank-iero.com
www.facebook.com/frankieromusic
@FrankIero
