Taking Back Sunday, The Menzingers, Letlive at The Danforth Music Hall

Photographs by Katrina Wong Shue.

I remember Taking Back Sunday in the eighth or ninth grade, and that they were one of those bands that everybody listened to, one of those bands that everybody liked. Everybody had their t-shirts, and knew all the words to ‘Cut Without The E,’ or ‘Number Five With A Bullet,’ and everyone begged their moms to let them go and see Taking Back Sunday at Warped Tour, or wherever they were at the time.

 Not me, though. I liked The White Stripes.

But I wasn’t going to miss this show; not after all those memories, not after every conversation I had to sit through in high school about Taking Back Sunday. Now, away from all that, I was going to see this band and decide once and for all what on earth all the fuss was about.

So that’s exactly what I did.

The Danforth Music Hall was filled with people I might have gone to high school with. Opening for TBS was The Menzingers and Letlive. Everyone seemed vaguely familiar and nostalgically correct. They were all there with the same memories, and probably some the same experiences in the backs of their minds. They, we, were all connected again by this band. The whole generation, that whole graduating class, back together again.

And for a guy who never liked Taking Back Sunday, I really liked Taking Back Sunday that night. 

‘Flicker, Fade,’ ‘Number Five With A Bullet,’ and ‘Cut Without The E’ in the encore were definitely showstoppers. The place rocked, and chanted, and moshed, and it was all exactly right. Everyone was back in high school again.

I missed Taking Back Sunday in their heyday; I missed them when everyone else loved them. But they were great on Friday night at The Danforth Music Hall, and even for a guy with a second-hand connection to the band, they took me back.