Awakebutstillinbed, Joyce Manor and Saves The Day
Elevation // Grand Rapids, MI // August 4th, 2019
Photos by Kendra Petersen Kamp // Review by Jordan Petersen Kamp
I just turned 25 and it appears that this is not the magic age where you automatically get your shit together. I wasn’t holding my breath, but it would have been a cool gift if the internal-plinko game of trying to land somewhere in the middle of Professional, Social and Healthy had worked itself out.
It would be bad for business for bands like Saves the Day and Joyce Manor if growing up were that simple.
Awakebutstillinbed
The bands’ co-headlining tour stopped at Elevation in Grand Rapids, Michigan on August 4. With a decade between the ages of the two bands and a similarly discernible gap between their fanbases, it seemed as though two generations of people were asking different versions of the same questions.
Joyce Manor songs are like distilling a whole night’s worth of partying into a minute and a half, where the entire arc of a friendship or relationship can unfold in one sprint. These guys write songs like Larry David writes TV; short songs about feeling weird or being bummed can feel comprehensive if for no reason than they’re inevitable and relatable.
Joyce Manor
There’s an off-kilter straightforwardness caked into every part of the California band’s set. Their guitars are melodic and hooky, unafraid of sounding silly in their boisterousness; their rhythm section is steadfast and predictable until it’s not, making one move that is so weird and specific it seems to shift the meaning of the phrase, like emphasizing a different syllable of a word. Joyce Manor has a blast when they play, wearing huge grins while performing their anthems of the disenchanted. And why wouldn’t they? If the conventional adult-world has proved disappointing, then a roomful of people yelling and moshing their agreement seems like a new world to put trust in.
Saves the Day’s set gave a glimpse of what this new world might look like as it ages. The New Jersey band are veterans now, 20 years removed from the release of their emo-opus Through Being Cool. Their set most heavily focused on material from this and the glossier, MTV-bona fide follow up Stay What You Are. The energy for Saves the Day was certainly less physical, but the fans found the same type of affirmation the moshers found in Joyce Manor.
Saves The Day
The stakes of Saves the Day’s older material seem lower now, but the themes are just as resonant. When Chris Conley— the sole founding member in the band— wrote these songs, distance meant a semester abroad and a fight with a friend could be introduced in verse one and resolved by the chorus. Most Saves the Day fans are at an age where distance means separation and pals don’t even see each other enough to start petty arguments. But those same anxieties and questions reverberate even in these new surroundings. There’s something about singing along with songs that you sang to in high school, feeling or finding new shades of the same things now that you did when you were learning about the world for the first time.
Maybe growing up isn’t so bad.
