This tour is loaded with potential- New York’s Macseal is an indie/emo revival powerhouse. They released their debut full-length Super Enthusiast in late 2019. Songs like Always Hazy, Lucky For Some, and Graduating Steps capture the melancholy of being in your twenties faced with the realities of adulthood while trying to hold onto some of the ideals and relationships formed when you were a teenager. This group sure to keep growing as they keep hitting the road- plenty of the audience there were singing along and clearly loved them already.
Retirement Party has a talent for songs with a deceiving tone- what starts out bare and melodic explodes into vibrance and what seems brash and raw is often carried by meaningful lyrics. Such a juxtaposition keeps their music really dynamic and kept the crowd engaged, ready to sing along to the quiet parts and thrash around for the loud ones. Singer Avery Springer and Guitarist Eddy Rodriguez had an infectious chemistry between every mean mugged breakdown and joyful jumping riff that had people partying along with them.
Chris Farren has been active in the music scene since 2005 with the Florida band Fake Problems- eventually dissolving it to form Antarctigo Vespucci with Jeff Rosenstock and finally putting out an album and touring as a solo act in 2019. His sound is somewhere between The Killers and Bruce Springsteen with anthemic lyrics of independence and the power of loving yourself. He’s a showman through and through; playing in front of a projector with an endless stream of his hand-drawn art, confetti thrown in celebration of the last day of the tour, and several custom-printed balloons that were sent above the crowd toward the encore. He’s certainly a spectacle worth a trip to see if he comes to a city near you, if not then you can always check out his 2019 record Born Hot!