Mayday Parade sells out Delmar Hall, St. Louis

Many of you may remember Mayday Parade from their heyday back in the early 2000s. If, like me, you happened to be in middle school between 2005 and 2010, this band was reaching the height of their popularity right around the same time as your angsty emo phase that hit so many young teenagers (and continues to do so to this day!!).

As we see with the massive hype around When We Were Young Festival, emo bands from that era like Mayday Parade, My Chemical Romance, Paramore and many more are seeing a huge revival, now that their audience has aged up to their late 20s to mid-30s and has even more money to spend on concerts now.

The trip down memory lane began on March 8th in St. Louis with self-proclaimed “TikTok band” Magnolia Park, who performed some original emo songs and a fan-favorite cover of Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down”. Next to perform was Real Friends, a pop punk band from Illinois. Catchy tunes and rainbow lights made for a slightly more danceable set than the head-banging that happened in the previous show. Then, it was time for the main event of the night.

Mayday Parade’s tour celebrates the 11th anniversary of their self-titled album and the agenda for the night was to play it front-to-back.

The emo band from Florida ran through the classic album with as much energy (if not more) than you would have expected 11 years ago! The band’s songs alternated between head-banging, hair-flipping emo rock and slower sing-along’s of the sad and lonely variety. As the set progressed, the ‘now-adults’ relived their glory days and showed they still knew how to form a mosh-pit or two.

After running through the album, the band played a few of their newer songs from their most recent and seventh studio album, What It Means to Fall Apart. As the show began to wind down, the band closed out the show with older cuts off their 2007 hit album, A Lesson in Romantics. Fans sang along to favorites like “Jersey”, “Jamie All Over ” and the sad and slow “Miserable At Best”. 

And, just like that, the show was over, and the crowd was painfully reminded that the year was in fact 2022. All in all, it was a great show which showed that the punk genre is still alive and well, with new bands following in the footsteps of their 90s and early 2000s predecessors. It also showed that those older bands are still around and able to sell out venues! Paying tribute to the nostalgia that their die hard fans share has always been a staple in the music business and it seems that the pop punk era has really been hitting its second wind lately. I’ve got to say, I’m not mad about it, and my 7th grade self would be totally psyched that I have a second shot at seeing so many of his ‘bucket list’ bands.

Photography by Sean Rider

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