Blink-182’s ‘California’ summer tour hits South Florida

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2016 may be remembered as the year kids born and raised in the 1990s rejoiced. Pokémon was the number one game in the country, Ghostbusters invaded movie theaters once again, a Clinton threw their hat into the race for the presidency, and Blink-182 reached the top of the charts with a number one album. For naysayers who claim Blink-182 hasn’t been a thing for years, they were proved wrong when a sold out crowd invaded West Palm Beach’s Perfect Vodka Amphitheater for four hours.

On Friday (Aug. 5), Blink-182 brought some their immature quirkiness to South Florida alongside some of their friends. Opening the humid summer evening was the All-American Rejects who treated the incoming crowd with a set full of classics. The Oklahoma-founded band, who hasn’t released a new album since 2012’s Kids in the Street, performed a medley of their biggest hits. Songs included “It Ends Tonight,” “Move Along,” “Dirty Little Secret,” and the song that broke them into the mainstream, “Swing, Swing.” During the set, the band also performed a brand new song titled “DGAF.” As they were about to begin their last song, frontman Tyson Ritter randomly proclaimed how he felt like Sebastian from The Little Mermaid. From there, the singer began to impersonate the Jamaican-accented crustacean from the Disney film. As the impersonation came to an end, the band launched directly into their final song of the evening, “Gives You Hell.”

After a set change, Florida’s own A Day to Remember got the chance to show their home state audience what they had to offer. The group, who call Ocala home, began their hour-long set with “The Downfall of Us All” as a slew of beach balls were thrown into the energetic crowd. Their set consisted of a mix of songs from their past albums like “2^nd Sucks,” “Right Back at it Again,” “All Signs Point to Lauderdale,” and more.

Frontman Jeremy McKinnon proved to be an entertaining frontman, interacting with the crowd as well as his fellow band mates throughout the set. During “It’s Complicated,” he followed his band mates around the stage with a GoPro camera, filming them while the footage displayed on the large, LED screens behind them. Before beginning on “Have Faith in Me” from 2009’s Homesick, he asked the women in the crowd to make their presence known. After a deafening cheer from the crowd, he dedicated the song to “all the ladies in the house.”

But that wasn’t all. Like a true frontman, McKinnon requested that all the people in the sold out lawn area make the biggest circle pit that they could for “Paranoia,” the group’s new song off of their impending album, Bad Vibrations. While the lawn circle pit may not have been the largest, it was big enough for those at the front of the stage to see in the dark venue.

As the set was coming to a close, McKinnon and his band mates contemplated playing a song of their own or playing a random cover. A unanimous decision was reached with the band playing part of Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova.” As the cover came to an end, the band broke the news to the crowd that the next song would be their final. They immediately began to play the song that helped them gain a slew of fans, 2007’s “The Plot to Bomb the Panhandle.”

While their set was a mix of mainly older material, it was a bit surprising that they decided not to include more songs from Bad Vibrations. The upcoming record, set to hit stores in September, already produced three singles: “Bullfight,” “Bad Vibrations,” and “Paranoia.”

Following ADTR’s exit from the stage, one last set change began. A little after 9 p.m., a sheer black sheet was erected on the stage, blocking the audience’s view of the stage. A short time later, the sheet dropped revealing not only the guys from Blink-182 (now including Matt Skiba), but also the word “FUCK” in flames. The set kicked off with “Feeling This” and continued by giving fans a mix of classics as well as some new tracks.

From the hour-and-a-half-long show, it was clear to see how Skiba fit in with the band. The proof came by the way he bantered with bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus, even trading instruments with him because Hoppus felt like it. As always, Travis Barker showcased his drumming skills, even treating the crowd to a solo while Hoppus and Skiba went backstage momentarily.

Since the band announced the departure of former member Tom DeLonge and that Skiba would replace him, debates have risen over whether Skiba was a doing a good job of filling the vacancy.  In short, it’s a complicated question. On newer tracks like “The Only Thing That Matters,” “Kings of the Weekend,” and current single “Bored to Death,” Skiba sounds like he was always a member of the band, not just someone who was added at the end of last year.

When it came to older tracks like “What’s My Age Again,” “First Date,” and “I Miss You” the same could not be said. During “I Miss You,” it was a little odd not hearing DeLonge’s nasally voice screeching out “…what’s with all the spiders/catching things and eating their insides.” Instead, Skiba’s vocals sounded too similar to Hoppus’ as he articulated every word correctly. While that is more of a personal opinion, it didn’t take away from the fun of the show.

Their set came to a close with a four-song encore that included “Los Angeles,” “All the Small Things,” “Brohemian Rhapsody,” and “Dammit.” As the last chords of “Dammit” played and confetti was blasted into the air, it signaled the end of the show that proved just because you need to grow up doesn’t exactly mean you need to mature; just ask the band still playing songs about “building a pool to see naked dudes” and prank calling your girlfriend’s mom.

Walk the Moon Bring the High-Energy Dance Party to Miami Beach

(Oct. 13) Walk the Moon at The Fillmore Miami Beach/ Photo by Erica Dominguez

Walk the Moon have become known for their catchy and upbeat songs almost as much as for their colorful and vivid shows reminiscent of a Lisa Frank drawing. On Tuesday night (Oct. 13), the Ohio-based band landed in Miami Beach for their first show ever at The Fillmore Miami Beach.

Kicking off the evening was California-based group HOLYCHILD. The duo, who met in a dance class, is made up of singer Liz Nistico and multi-instrumentalist Louie Diller. Their stage presence, especially Nistico, was not to be missed. Dressed in a Boho version of Princess Jasmine’s attire in Aladdin, Nistico showed the crowd just how into her own music she was, dancing around the stage while Diller, who was dressed in a sweater with a massive hamburger on his chest, played his own instruments.

While their stagemanship was energetic and vivid, the same cannot be said about their stage lighting. For a venue with a dark paint job, it was not ideal to have the duo perform in predominately dark lights. For audience members nowhere near the front of the stage, and the photographers alike, it became a particularly difficult task to see the band members on stage. But while some were bothered by the unfortunate lighting situation, it didn’t seem to bother those at the front of the barricades singing and dancing throughout the whole set.

Once their set ended, that stage went dark allowing Walk the Moon’s technicians to get to work setting up the stage for the band. Knowing that waiting for a set change is a particularly daunting and boring task, especially for the fans who had been waiting since three in the afternoon, the venue put on a playlist consisting of electro-pop groups with music styles similar to Walk the Moon.

When Capital Cities’ “Safe and Sound” blasted through the speakers, a massive sing-along ensued with the crowd’s joint voices almost drowning out the actual song. Once “Safe and Sound” ended, Elton John’s “Circle of Life” soon filled the room. The song was an indication that the band was about to hit the stage.

Hidden by the dark blue lights illuminating the stage, the members of Walk the Moon made their way to their rightful places on the stage during the Lion King song. The subdued moment didn’t last long as the band quickly launched into the first song of the evening, “Jenny.” Quickly, everyone in the room began to realize that this was not a show that was going to lose its high energy, liveness.

During “Jenny,” frontman Nicholas Petricca was so in the zone that at one point it appeared that he was grinding against his keyboards. Not to be outdone by their frontman, guitarist Eli Maiman and bassist Kevin Ray ran up and down the stage like a bunch of children who drank one too many Red Bulls earlier in the day. Not to be left out was drummer Sean Waugaman with his purple hair and turquoise lit drum set, banging his drums and cymbals to the beat of the first song of the night.

After playing through “Sidekick” and “Avalanche” from 2014’s Talking is Hard, the album the tour is named after, Petricca admitted that this was their first show in the “Magic City.” It was true. When they opened for Panic! at the Disco during 2014’s “The Gospel Tour,” the show took place in Boca Raton while their sold out show earlier this year was at Ft. Lauderdale’s Revolution Live. Petricca also admitted how much he liked Miami because it was a “melting pot” full of “different colors”; a direct lead-in for their current single, “Different Colors.”

The setlist mainly consisted of songs from Talking is Hard including “UP2U,” “Work That Body,” Portugal,” and “Aquaman,” but managed to add some songs from their self-titled debut like “Tightrope,” “Lisa Baby,” and “I Can Lift a Car.” The last song on their official setlist was the one that earned them massive popularity and resulted in the song spending a history-making 27 consecutive weeks at number one on Billboard’s Hot Rock Song chart; “Shut Up and Dance.” The song stayed true to its title, making everyone in the crowd get up and dance, including a couple of security guards and fire rescue personnel.

Once the song ended, the four-piece walked off stage, but the crowd was not happy about that. Instead, they began to chant “Anna Sun”; arguably the band’s breakout song and the one track they had yet to play. For what was probably the shortest pre-encore break, the band came back onto the stage for their encore set. Petricca spoke to the audience, thanking them for coming out on a rainy Tuesday evening and even showing off some of his Spanish; “To all our friends from south of the border, gracias por venir.” After the thanks, they launched into “We are the Kids” also off of Talking is Hard.

Once “We are the Kids” had concluded, Walk the Moon didn’t waste any time and launched directly into the song that everyone, or at least the vast majority of the audience, was waiting for, “Anna Sun.” Proving that these were not just a group of people here for the “one hit,” the medley of voice sang the lyrics alongside Petricca until the very last word. After throwing some guitar picks, a Styrofoam plate with the setlist written on it, and what was appeared to be a drum head into the crowd, the band bid their final farewell to the dissipating crowd before them. As they made their way off the stage to the backstage area, the crowd of fans that still lingered made their own ways to the exit, signaling the end to another concert at The Fillmore.

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All Time Low Bring Their ‘Future Hearts’ to Boca Raton

Driving down a long, winding road surrounded by trees, the first thought to pop into your head would probably be “where exactly is this Sunset Cove Amphitheater?”

Past a golf course with a range, a school, and a dog park, a clearing with a shelter and lines of port-a-potties will appear right on the edge of a body of water. A scenic view, not something you’d expect for a concert venue.

Beyond the iron gates, the sun could be seen beginning to set, giving the impression that it had been nothing but a clear day in the city of Boca Raton.

That was not the case a few hours earlier, when the gates first opened and a torrential downpour threatened the rock show that was about to take place.

By the time the supporting acts of the evening State Champs, Tonight Alive, and Issues had taken the stage, South Florida had decided to give the rain a break and allow a clear evening sky for All Time Low to give their fans a part of their (future) hearts.

After a long set change, which required the crew to moving  all show equipment far from the edge of the stage in the event Florida weather decided to strike again, the stage lights turned dark signaling that the Baltimore-based band were ready to kick off the show.

The set opened up with “Satellite,” the first track off of their recently released album, Future Hearts. After the mellow song played out, they quickly launched into “The Irony of Chocking on a Lifesaver” off of 2013’s Don’t Panic followed by “In Stereo” and “Stella” both from 2011’s Nothing Personal.

After “Stella,” frontman Alex Gaskarth thanked the fans on behalf of the band for sticking around after the horrible rain they endured. He admitted that for a while, he thought the vast majority of the audience would have left due to the terrible weather.

Apparently, he underestimated the dedication of their “Hustlers.”

They continued with tracks like “Six Feet Under the Stars” which ended up with a large potion of the audience participating in a circle pit followed by “Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t),” and “Runaways,” another new track from Future Hearts.

As Gaskarth and guitarist Jack Barakat spoke to the audience, they noticed there was a guy holding a sign, asking the band to help him ask a girl out to prom; you know, a promposal. Instead, Gaskarth jokingly asked the girl to go with him, but sadly, the girl not only turned the singer down, but also the guy.

Bummer.

Barakat quickly tried to turn the embarrassing moment into one that was funny by telling the audience about this story someone had told him earlier in the day. The story went that if you took off all your clothes and stood naked outside, the rain could not touch you.

For anyone familiar with Barakat and Gaskarth, both act like permanent teenage boys.

As he finished the story, the audience quickly erupted in a “get naked” chant. Nothing came from that, so they continued onto the next song on the list, “Weightless.”

As “Weightless” ended, thing went quiet for a bit.

Gaskarth emerged from the back with an acoustic guitar to play the acoustic song “Therapy” also from Nothing Personal. Once the slow song was over, the other three band members (Barakat, bassist Zack Merrick, and drummer Rian Dawson) returned and played “Missing You,” another song from Future Hearts which the band has repeatedly stated is their favorite on the record.

They quickly continued down the list with “Reckless and the Brave” and “Love Like War.” “Love Like War” originally features vocals from Pierce the Veil’s Vic Fuentes, but this version was given a special twist when Tonight Alive frontwoman, Jenna McDougall, came on stage to take over Fuentes’ parts.

As the song ended Gaskarth hugged McDougall and the band began “Backseat Serenade” followed by “Time-Bomb,” but this version of the Dirty Work song was different.

Before beginning, the band decided they wanted to bring some fans on stage to assist with the song. When they announced their plan, the crowd went crazy with everyone from the back to the front, trying to get the band members’, and their security’s, attention.

Somehow, they managed to have too many females on the stage (who were too busy taking selfies/videos) and Barakat started to complain there weren’t “enough penises” on stage. Eventually, they got the right balance and launched into the song.

Maybe the microphones weren’t plugged in or the fans couldn’t remember all the words, but the only vocals heard were Gaskarth’s.

With a quick shout out to some members of hometown band New Found Glory who were in the crowd (All Time Low’s name comes from a NFG song), they started on their last official song of the evening, “Something’s Gotta Give.”

Once the song wrapped, the band headed backstage and soon after, the “ONE MORE SONG” chants began. But the band didn’t give them just one more song; they gave them a total of four.

The encore began with “Kids in the Dark,” a fitting title considering everyone in the crowd at that moment were “kids in the dark.” They followed the new song up with “Jasey Rae,” an oldie, but a goodie they always dedicate to their longtime fans.

A surprise to the setlist came when they played Blink-182’s “All the Small Things.” At first, it seemed like they would just play the intro, but then they launched into the full song. As they wrapped, Barakat joked that it was a song they “just wrote” and had no idea how the audience knew the words.

But as everyone laughed at the joke, it soon became apparent the night was wrapping up. There was only one song left on the encore set list. The song that launched them from MySpace sweethearts to the band whose new album landed at the number two spot on the Billboard 200; “Dear Maria, Count Me In.”

Earlier in the week, the RIAA had revealed that the 2007 song had reached platinum status, quite a feat for a bunch of goofy guys from Maryland.

As the song wrapped, confetti was blasted into the air signaling the end of the show. As confetti rained down on the fans, as opposed to the rain from a couple of hours earlier, Barakat, who was rocking a hot pink frilly bra during the song, could be seen through the screen of smoke and paper dancing along to Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” as the audience members began to shuffle their way out the gates. Soon, the house lights came on, signaling the end of the South Florida stop of the “Future Hearts Tour.”

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Taking Back Sunday Show Ft. Lauderdale What ‘Happiness Is…’

If you were to tell the “emo kids” of the 2000s that one of the bands that helped shape that scene would still be selling out concert venues more than ten years later, their response would probably be a scoff and a “well duh.”

But as history has shown, many bands who hit it big back then have either changed their line-up considerably or all together broken up. But Taking Back Sunday has shown that they could withstand the test of time by selling out the same venue not once, but twice, in two years.

Like entering any darkly lit night club on a Saturday night, as soon as you entered Revolution Live, you were instantly greeted by hoards of people who showed up early just to proclaim a spot of their own. Through the cigarette smoke and people clinging onto cans of beer, finding a spot became one of the most difficult parts of the evening, though not impossible.

In the background, the first band of the night, letlive. was on the stage entertaining fans with their screaming which even included two covers of some iconic hardcore bands. The first was a cover of “The Deadly Rhythm” from the newly reunited Refused. The second was Black Flag’s “Fix Me.” But as the song began, commotion from the second floor of the venue got louder and louder with security shoving people out of the way to make room. It was only a short time later that someone pointed out that a member of Black Flag was there.

After one more song, letlive. ended not only their set for the evening, but their time on the Happiness Is…Tour.

As the band and their crew moved quickly to take down and set up the stage, it was a little over half an hour until the second act of the evening took the stage; The Menzingers.

The Menzingers quickly went into their first song of the night, “I Don’t Want to Be an Asshole.” As they played, the band’s sound began to reminiscing of being a teenager. Their songs sounded like music those “weirdos” who went to high school in the 2000s used to listen to and could probably fit in with the other songs on our old school MP3 players.

As they were getting ready to begin another song, the screen behind them lit up with Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara on the a screen. Attention was soon placed on Lazzara, but calmed down once the audience realized that it was just a gif (a very short clip being played on a loop). Though some were bummed that Lazzara was not currently waving at everyone live, the excitement for The Menzingers did not waver especially when they played a cover of Rancid’s “Roots Radical.”

Once their set wrapped, the stage went dark to let the road crew do their job and get ready for the headliners. As the commotion of setting up the stage went on for half an hour, the music in the background kept audience members awake and pumped, especially when “Forget About Dre” began to play the background.

On several instances, the lights turned on, giving false hopes to the packed venue. But the final time was different.

It was time.

Smoke began to fill the dark stage as band members began to make their way to their assigned spots. The final person to enter the stage was Lazzara. Once the lights went up, the singer was no longer on the stage, but rather on one of the side bars above the pit. Dressed in black, he began to sing the lyrics to the “Flicker, Fade” the first single off of Happiness Is…with blue lights flickering behind him.

“Flicker, Fade” quickly transitioned into “What’s it Feels Like to Be a Ghost?” from 2006’s Louder Now with little cartoon ghost images flashing behind the band on the screen.

As the song wrapped, Lazzara began to speak to the audience. He proceeded to tell a story of an awkward interaction guitarist John Nolan had with a girl who was dressed in short shorts. Due to the closeness of Lazzara’s mouth and the microphone, it was hard to hear what exactly happened, but somehow he managed to find the girl in the pit and point her out.

Kind of a cool story to tell your friends in the future.

As the night progressed, fans of the band got a set list that contained songs from several of their albums, though tracks from 2008’s New Again seemed to be left off the 21-song list.

“Timberwolves at New Jersey,” “Ghost Man on Third,” “You Know How I Do,” and “You’re So Last Summer” made appearances on behalf of Tell All Your Friends which turned ten just last year.

One of the funniest parts of the evening happened towards the end of “You’re So Last Summer” when a video montage of members of the tour lit up the screen behind the band. In it, the members were all dancing around, even kicking their legs up as if they were some Moulin Rouge rejects dancing the can-can.

“We’re going to let this play for a little longer,” joked Lazzara as he turned to stare at the screen.

Where You Want to Be is probably one of their biggest albums (alongside TAYF), so it was only fitting to have several tracks from the album performed live. Tracks included “Bonus Mosh Pt. II,” “One-Eighty by Summer” which according to Lazzara was a request by opening act letlive., and of course “A Decade Under the Influence.” During the song, Nolan could be seen, from his little corner on stage left, making random and kooky faces as Lazzara’s voice changed throughout the song.

Louder Now was a hit album among fans and it was nice to hear songs likes “Liar (It Takes One to Know One),”  “Spin,” and “Error: Operator” get played live rather than hear it directly from a CD. Deep down inside though, there was some hope that the band would play “Miami” since Ft. Lauderdale is as close to Miami as any band ever gets.

The rest of the set list was made up of songs from Happiness Is…which included “Stood a Chance,” “How I Met Your Mother,” and a song that made Lazzara somber up a little bit as the band performed it, “Better Homes and Gardens.” For those listening to the lyrics of the song and happen to know a little bit of band member history, it would only take a few second to realize that the inspiration for the song was Lazzara’s engagement falling apart back in 2007.

Though the energy in the room was somber as it was performed, it picked up right after the song was over, proving that “emo” songs don’t always dampen the mood.

Before long, the last song on the “official” set list ended and the lights went down. For once, no one moved knowing that in a few seconds the band would be back out to perform their encore.

The band emerged on to the stage with Lazzara holding an acoustic guitar in his hands, to begin the first encore song, a track titled “Call Me in the Morning” off of 2011’s self-titled.

Thankfully, they did not end the show with that song and picked up the pace when they began the first notes of “Cute without the ‘E’ (Cut from the Team).”

If it wasn’t for the insulated wall Revolution Live has, there was a chance the people at the Broward Theater of the Performing Arts down the street would be able to hear the hundreds of voices screaming together “and will you tell all your friends you’ve got your gun to my head.”

But fans didn’t need to start chanting “one more song” once it wrapped because quickly, they went into another one of their big hits, “MakeDamnSure.” If anyone thought the crowd couldn’t get anymore insane, they would be wrong. It was as if the entire venue went from a ten on the energy scale to an 11 throughout the song.

As the last notes of “MakeDamnSure” were held by the instruments and Lazzara’s (and the audience’s) vocals, it was the end of the road on memory lane. Those 20 and 30-somethings who wanted to relive their youth got to do so with the band that probably got them through some of the toughest days of being a teenager and maybe gave them a new-found love of music.

It was a trip that for just a moment you could feel like the worst things you could do was dye your hair hot pink without your parents knowing, wear too much eyeliner, and writing all over your Converse.

A simpler time. And man, how they are missed.

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Silverstein on the ‘Discovering the Waterfront Tenth Anniversary Tour’

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Silverstein at Revolution Live in Ft. Lauderdale, FL for their “Discovering the Waterfront Tenth Anniversary Tour” (Feb. 13, 2015) also frontman Shane Told’s birthday.

Anberlin Give Ft. Lauderdale Their “Last Good Night”

Typically when bands decide to call it a day, they just release the tired and clichéd “we are splitting up” statement, leaving a bad taste in fans’ mouth. Instead of going that route, Winter Haven’s Anberlin decided to treat fans to one last world tour before putting the band to rest, ending it all where it began; Orlando. But before that could happen, they made a quick stop in our backyard to say good-bye to their South Floridian fans.

Arriving at Revolution Live in Ft. Lauderdale, the scene would appear as if no one was interested in bidding farewell to the home state band with the front of the venue clear of anyone waiting to enter. Only a few people were present, mostly standing at the box office located next to the band’s tour bus. But the second the concert ticket was scanned and entrance was granted into the darkly dim night club, the scene would change dramatically with the club’s two floors full of eager fans ready for the bittersweet experience.

Opening the show were 68, the creation of The Chariot vocalist, Josh Scogin. The duo had recently joined the remaining days of the world tour and made sure to let the audience know who chose them for the part. “If you like us, thank you very much. If you don’t like us, then blame Anberlin,” Scogin jokingly told the audience.

During their set, they played several of their songs including one titled “Track One.” At one point, Scogin was strumming his guitar over drummer Michael McClellan, so McClellan decided to play the guitar with his drumsticks; an interesting sight to see. Scogin would then follow that up by showing his adventurous side during the short set by climbing on McClellan’s drum kit to play his guitar, though we were pretty sure he was a little drunk at that point of the night.

After their set wrapped, with a long closer, the duo walked off stage to make way for the headliners of the night and the reason that the pit area in front of the stage was filled to the brim with bodies.

Half an hour after the road crew took the stage to set up the instruments, the stage became dark as the members of Anberlin shuffled onto one of the final stages of their career. Frontman Stephen Christian was the last to get on stage, but almost as fast as he got on stage, they launched into the first song of the evening; “Paperthin Hymn” from their second album, Never Take Friendship Personal.

For the most part, the band were quiet, sticking to singing and playing, rather than bantering with the audience like many musicians tend to do at a concert, but after “Take Me (As You Found Me),” Christian had to make a comment about a crowd member in particular. “It’s one of our slowest songs and there you are fighting,” he said, directing the attention to someone in the audience.

“She was looking to slug someone. I don’t get it. We’re not Metallica. We’re more like ‘Mmmbop,’” Christian said, singing a line from the Hanson song, resulting in a round of laughter from the audience members. But the talking didn’t last much as they launched into another somewhat mellow song, “The Unwinding Cable Car.”

A song that had an odd placement in the band’s 20-song set list was “The Symphony of Blasé.” For a song that’s lyrics consist of “this is our last good night,” it seemed odd to place it in the middle of the show instead of closing with it.

The setlist did its best to give fans a little bit from every album, but when you have seven albums and 12 years worth of songs, it’s hard to give everyone what they want. The band even paid tribute to those who have been there since the beginning by playing a song from their debut album (Blueprints for the Black Market), “ReadyFuels.”

As the night progressed songs from Cities such as “Godspeed” and “A Whisper and a Clamor,” were played while “Dismantle. Repair” did a good job of dismantling fans’ emotions.

Other songs featured were: “Self-Starter,” “Someone Anyone,” “Other Side” from VITAL; “The Resistance” and “Breaking” from New Surrender; and “Never Take Friendship Personal” and “A Day Late,” from Never Take Friendship Personal among others.

Two surprises came from the Ft. Lauderdale setlist. The first was the fact that even though they had just released a new album at the beginning of the year, they only performed one song from Lowborn, “We Are the Destroyer”; not even lead single “Hearing Voices.” Another surprise came from the song they did not play, “Adelaide,” a song that was met with lots of enthusiasm at the Vans Warped Tour in West Palm Beach this past Summer.

The “last” song of the evening was the track that helped catapult them into the mainstream, “Feel Good Drag.” Once the last chord of the song came to an end, all five members of the band walked off the stage, earning them the sound of the packed venue chanting, “one more song.” Of course, when the house lights did not instantly appear, it meant “one more song” was well on its way.

The band officially closed out their set with the aptly named song, “(*Fin),” the closing track on Cities. As Christian sang about being “the patron saint of lost causes,” fans raised their crossed fingers in the air, mimicking the image on the cover of Lowborn. We like to believe it’s a promise from the band that they will be back or at least continue making music for those that have such a connection to their lyrics.

As the song ended, you could feel the aura of the venue go from excitement to sadness as the band hugged one another, took a group photograph with the crowd behind them, waved goodbye to their South Florida fans, and walked off the stage.

As the house lights came on, all that can be seen was the road crew getting ready to take apart the stage as well as the band’s backdrop which was a simple black material hanging from the rafters with “Anberlin” printed in all caps in white.

As the crowd shuffled out the doors of Revolution Live, you could feel the bittersweet aura follow everyone out into the cool night air.

This marked the end of a 12 year era.

New Found Glory Acoustic Set at F.Y.E.

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New Found Glory treating hometown fans to an acoustic performance at F.Y.E. at Sawrgrass Mills Mall in Sunrise, FL (Oct. 11) as part of their in-store tour in conjunction with the Glamour Kills Tour.

Panic! at the Disco on ‘The Gospel Tour’

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Panic! at the Disco in Boca Raton on their The Gospel Tour (August 15, 2014).

Linkin Park on the ‘Carnivores Tour’

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Linkin Park in West Palm Beach on the first day of the Carnivores Tour (August 8, 2014).

30 Seconds to Mars on the ‘Carnivores Tour’

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30 Seconds to Mars in West Palm Beach on the first day of the Carnivores Tour (August 8, 2014).