Live review: Taking Back Sunday, The Fillmore (10/8/2014)

Taking Back Sunday
The Fillmore
Oct. 8, 2014

The Fillmore was packed Wednesday night in anticipation of the return of Taking Back Sunday. As the crowd patiently waited through three opening groups, snatches of conversation could be heard, reminiscing about when the band’s debut album, Tell All Your Friends, came out and defined the band for a generation.

Yes, reminiscing seems like an odd choice of word, but it’s accurate. Taking Back Sunday seems timeless and yet Tell All Your Friends came out 12 years ago. It’s odd that the group is now being painted as old-school by its fans, but the passage of time has had no effect on the band or its fan base. The only difference is that now both band and fans have grown up.

The whole night, through an almost two hour set, was pretty nostalgic. Frontman Adam Lazzara lives right down the street from the Fillmore, “just a five minute drive from here,” he said, so it seemed appropriate that the last stop of this tour was a bit of a homecoming. Lazzara has a trademark ease when it comes to interacting with fans that makes live shows intimate (despite being filled to the rafters), and it’s especially evident when he’s amongst his fellow Charlotteans. “I grew up in High Point, North Carolina,” he told the crowd during a break, to cheers. “Wow. I’ve never been anywhere where the crowd was like, ‘Woo! High Point!’” he joked.

The band has been through quite the series of lineup changes in the past few years but the band taking the Fillmore stage was that Tell All Your Friends-era Taking Back Sunday. It seemed appropriate that the band played plenty of old favorites, throwing it back constantly to the delight of the crowd.

Of course, they occasionally played some of the newer stuff; TBS’ most recent release, Happiness, has a ton of great new tracks that showcase a more mature sound, and the songs hold up even when peppered in amongst the timeless favorites like “Cute without the E (Cut from the team)” and “A Decade Under the Influence.” And even though every fan in the club wasn’t screaming the lyrics to the new songs the way they did to every word of the old, in time, Happiness is bound to join the repertoire of Taking Back Sunday classics.

After a set full of ribbing with the crowd, high-energy playing and Lazzara’s trademark mic swinging, the show ended with a statement that pretty much summed up how far the band’s come over the years and how much things have changed. Before launching into closer and favorite “Make Damn Sure” Lazzara expressed his appreciation for being back home and being closer to his bed. “We’ve got time for one more… And then some really rock and roll shit is going down at my house tonight,” he said, grinning. “I’m gonna take a shower. And then I’m going to go to bed.”

Now that’s rock and roll.

Setlist
Stood a Chance
Cute with the ‘E’ (Cut from the Team)
Liar
They Don’t Have Any Friends
Timberwolves at New Jersey
Faith (When I Let You Down)
Bonus Mosh Pt. II
Number Five With a Bullet
What’s it Feel like to be a Ghost
A Decade Under the Influence
Set Phasers to Stun
Better Homes and Gardens
Error: Operator
You’re so Last Summer
One-Eighty by Summer
My Blue Heaven
Flicker, Fade
You Know How I Do