It was a night of firsts on April 22nd in St. Petersburg FL. The first date of Mayday Parade’s anniversary tour, my first time seeing them (and all the openers), and my first time getting covered in head to toe glitter from a confetti cannon.
Three Cheers for 20 Years brought out the best pop-punk has to offer. Mayday Parade being supported by Like Roses, Grayscale, and Microwave.
Starting off the night was Like Roses, a California based rock band with the perfect tempo to get the crowd warmed up for the night ahead. The four piece band offered clean vocals, and expert guitar solos that had the crowd bouncing along with the band. Following was Grayscale, a Philly rock band with nostalgia written all over them. Their setlist took you back in time where pop-punk love ballads ran rampant and every local guy you knew rocked a pair of black high top converse. Closing out the openers was Microwave, the Atlanta based rock band offering the crowd a high energy set with a spinning guitarist who ripped solos and a lead who headbanged so hard his hat flew off mid song. This is where the crowd truly picked up, signaling it was about to be a night to remember.
Nostalgia was a key word of the night. The lights cut to black as two screens lit up on the back of the stage, showing the audience an old Warped Tour interview circa 2006. I found myself tearing up at the video, seeing how far the band has come since then. The Tallahassee band opened the night with Derek Sanders on the piano, playing “By The Way” for the first time live. Sanders took center stage after to greet the fans and tell them that this is the first time they had ever played the iconic Jannus Live stage and how impactful it felt to the band to do it twenty years later celebrating their life as a Florida band. From then on, the night took us on a touring ride through their discography, songs from albums: Tales Told By Dead Friends, A Lesson in Romantics, Anywhere But Here, Valdosta, self-titled Mayday Parade, Monsters in the Closet, Black Lines, Sunnyland, What it Means to Fall Apart, More Like a Crash, and Sweet. Leads from the opening bands joined the band multiple times throughout the night, offering dynamic duets, and fans were treated to multiple piano ballads. This was their era’s tour and they did not shy away from showing every part of themselves, where they have been as a band and what the future looks like for them. They ended the night with “Jamie All Over,” the band giving space in the middle of the song for fans to sing along before being showered in white and silver confetti, the shimmering pieces painting the sky as the band closed out the night with the crowd jumping and crowd surfers crossing the barricade one final time. Mayday Parade not only was a beacon for pop-punk bands in the music scene, but inspired a whole new era of Florida based bands to take the leap, and to sell out Jannus Live twenty years later is an amazing feat to aspire to.
Three Cheers for Mayday Parade!
