02/18/25 @ Empire Live, Albany

“During the first chorus, he didn’t even bother singing. You wouldn’t have heard him anyways, such was the volume of the crowd screaming every word.”

I was 14 years old when I first heard The Get Up Kids in the Fall of 2002. The record Something To Write Home About had come out three years prior, but I was only 11 then so cut me some slack.

My whole group of friends joined The Respect Club at school so that we could have a hand in planning the monthly open mic nights in the library. That planning took all of ten minutes so during our weekly meetings, we’d mostly goof off and listen to CDs on the boombox in the classroom.

At this time we were deeply rooted in bands on Drive Thru and Equal Vision Records. New Found Glory, Coheed and Cambria and The Starting Line were all in heavy rotation. Our club advisors, a husband and wife team that grew up during emo’s first wave, recognized our budding musical taste and decided to impart their wisdom upon us. Lo and behold, there were other record labels releasing angsty music for loners and rebels!

They began bringing in CDs from their era to share with the group. Staples like Sunny Day Real Estate and Texas Is The Reason were among the first to grace the boombox. Then they flexed on us with records from The Casket Lottery and Hurl, the latter of which doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, so how about that for scene credentials! But the one that hit different was Something To Write Home About; from the opening pick slide on “Holiday” I was hooked.

After school that day, I immediately asked my parents if I could go on the internet. I had to ask because it was dial-up and I would be occupying the phone line for the next three to four hours. Ah, the good ol’ days. This was post Napster, so LimeWire was my pirating service of choice (don’t come at me FBI, I was only making $9/hr at Hannaford). After constructing 15 new AIM away messages with boundary-pushing song lyrics and posting an attention-seeking entry about loneliness on LiveJournal, I was now in possession of a burnt copy of the emo classic, Something to Write Home About. It didn’t leave the portable CD player for the next two weeks.

22 and a half years later, The Get Up Kids are back in the Capital Region for the album’s anniversary tour and in a full circle moment, I’m fortunate enough to attend the show with those same teachers that introduced me to them back in high school. Life really is beautiful sometimes.

On a frigid Tuesday night in February, the venue was packed with 30 and 40 year olds who knew, for a fact, that it wasn’t just a phase. The Anniversary was up first. They opened with “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” and everyone sang along whilst raising their ice cold PBR can in the air. After, singer/keyboardist Adrianne Verhoeven broke out some maracas in a bedazzled top that wouldn’t quit. People clapped respectfully after each song before turning back to their individual conversations. 35 minutes later they closed with “The D in Detroit”. The singing along and beer-raising resumed.

The anticipation made it feel like forever, but half an hour later The Get Up Kids took the stage to a rapturous reception from the eager crowd. Guitarist and backing vocalist, Jim Suptic, stepped up to the mic to greet everyone and then there was that epic pick slide from “Holiday” again. It felt like the first time I heard it all over again. Literally, big ups to the band and their sound engineer because it sounded like we were all just listening to the record with a backing track of crowd vocals.

As has become customary with these anniversary shows, they proceeded to play the album in order. They went through the next three song stretch – “Action & Action”, “Valentine”, and “Red Letter Day” – without a break and the energy from both the band and the crowd was relentless. For “Out of Reach”, lead singer and guitarist Matt Pryor broke out the acoustic guitar to lead the crowd in a campfire style singalong. During the first chorus, he didn’t even bother singing. You wouldn’t have heard him anyways, such was the volume of the crowd screaming every word.

While the crowd was loud throughout, their moment came during “I’m A Loner Dottie, A Rebel.” The band comes in for their 40 second, octave-laden intro and then everything else falls away except for Pryor’s guitar (an Epiphone electric this time). Pryor and Suptic stepped away from their mics and came to the front of the stage. The beer cans went up in the air and everyone screamed, “Come tomorrow, I’ll be on my way back home,” in unison. It didn’t stop there either. The crowd kept that same energy throughout the whole song and there wasn’t a moment where you could hear either of the band’s vocalists. The crowd took care of every single lyric.

The ballad “Long Goodnight” was up next and in a truly genuine moment, two middle-aged bros shared a tender embrace and sang, “I’m not bitter anyway,” while staring into each other’s eyes. Such is the effect that The Get Up Kids has on us.

The 12-track album came to a close with “I’ll Catch You” and when Pryor sang, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you,” it felt like he was reassuring every single one of us. While the band came back out for an encore featuring hits like “Mass Pike” from The Red Letter Day EP and “Don’t Hate Me” from Four Minute Mile, it felt like a different show. The energy was not gone but it had definitely shifted. The 30 and 40 somethings began to think about work or the screaming children that awaited them the next morning and a sense of middle-aged guilt about going so hard started to creep into the building.

Before departing, Suptic shared a heartfelt thank you with the crowd for rocking with them the past 25 years and said they’d be back in another 25. I’m fully convinced every attendee that’s still kicking would be right back there screaming along.