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By Alan Sculley
When the recently reunited Yellowcard received an offer to do a headlining tour this summer, the band members’ reaction wasn’t what one might expect as they saw a routing full of outdoor amphitheaters. (They’re performing locally at the Four Chord Music Fest in Washington, Pa., on Saturday, Aug. 12).
“We were quite frankly terrified when the offer came to us,” singer/guitarist Ryan Key says. “We were kind of dumbfounded. We’ve never played these (size venues) before; how can we play them now? We were continually told by our booking agent, our manager and Live Nation: ‘You’ve got to trust us. You’ve got to trust us. We’ve got our finger on the pulse right now and we know what’s happening.’”
Key pointed to his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, to illustrate why he and his bandmates — Sean Mackin (violin), Ryan Mendez (guitar) and Josh Portman (bass) — were so stunned to see the venues they would be playing. In the years before Yellowcard broke up in 2016, the band generally played the 1,100-capacity club Mavericks. This summer, Yellowcard is booked into Daily’s Place, a 5,500-capacity amphitheater. Key initially had troubling visions of a venue one-third full bouncing through his head.
“It’s not the best look. So I was just like, it’s a hometown show. Why are we tempting fate?” Key says. “And the show sold out so fast off, just like the initial pre-sale, then they came to us and said they would like to add a second show at Daily’s Place.”
Clearly, something had changed while the members of Yellowcard had moved on with no expectations to ever be a band again.
“With 100% certainty, I can tell you we had no plans to do what we’re doing now. It was very much the end,” Key says.
But then came an offer to play at Riot Fest in Chicago last summer, from just the right person.
“We’ve had the same booking agent since 2001. Of all of the people that worked with the band, Corrie Christopher, our agent, has been with us for our entire career. And she’s heavily involved in Riot Fest,” Key says. “She would be the one to know it’s time for you guys to play a show and this is the show you should play.”
The Riot Fest show was a roaring success. Still, Key says band members are taking things one step at a time and making no commitments beyond this summer’s tour.
That approach makes sense for a band that truly felt their story was ending in 2016. Formed in 1997, Yellowcard released three independent albums before landing a major label deal with Capitol Records. The band’s 2003 debut release on Capitol, “Ocean Avenue,” put Yellowcard firmly on the emerging alt-rock map, with Mackin’s violin giving the band a twist from other bands on the scene. The song “Ocean Avenue” became a platinum-selling single and the album also went platinum.
The ensuing years, though, saw several personnel changes, stints on three different record labels, a mid-career hiatus from 2008 to 2010, and growing frustration about being unable to regain the success of “Ocean Avenue.” Finally, the band decided things had run their course.
“Without going into a lot of detail and intimate aspects of why that happened, in general, it was time for it to happen,” Key says of the 2016 breakup. “We were in a place where our income was declining a little bit each year. Everyone was starting families. Everyone was looking toward the future — up until 2016, we were still gone probably eight months a year touring — and wondering if it worth it. We were doing so much international touring and it did start to feel a bit like we were on a hamster wheel and it was not progressing anymore.”
Now Yellowcard is back, and not only on tour, but with a new five-song EP, “Childhood Eyes.”
Key said the idea of doing new music came into play as the band members found their relationships were improving and they were enjoying each other’s company. “Childhood Eyes” mixes rocking, hook-filled tunes like “Hiding in the Light” and the title track with more measured, but still melodic songs such as “Honest From The Jump” and “The Places We’ll Go” (which features a guest vocal from Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional).
Now comes the tour, and Key is excited about the scale of the shows.
“The (stage) production on these shows is unlike anything we’ve ever done,” Key says. “Not to give anything away, but if you’ve come to see many Yellowcard shows in your life, first of all, thank you for continuing to come see us, and second, you’ve never seen anything like this. We are so excited for the show itself and the experience we’re going to have.”
Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness
Perhaps it’s only fitting for someone who has Wilderness as part of his stage/band name that Andrew McMahon plans to get a little wild with his live shows this year.
Not to say there’s any real intention to live up to a name, but McMahon says he’s ready to change things up with his show.
“I do think, the last handful of years, I don’t want to say the show has been regimented, but it’s been a little bit more of like a classic ‘let’s build a set list, let’s really hit these marks.’ And I’ve enjoyed that a lot. I hadn’t really done that until the Wilderness,” he says. “I’m going to try and maybe throw that out on this tour.”
McMahon’s thinking about the show he wants to present solidified during three recent album release shows for “Tilt at the Wind No More,” his fourth Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness album. In addition to playing the entire new album, McMahon pulled out songs from his extensive back catalog that hadn’t been performed in years.
“So all three nights, the setlist was really, really different. I think it just gave me the sense like ‘Ah, maybe this is the thing that needs to happen for this next phase,” McMahon says, noting that he probably will play a half dozen of the new album’s 11 songs during the shows this summer. “It’s like leaving the door open from night to night. At soundcheck, let’s learn a tune we haven’t played in a while and really try to make the show a little more of a wild card, a little more spontaneous.”
McMahon has plenty of choices when it comes to making up a setlist. He came on the scene in 1998 as singer/keyboard player in Something Corporate, a band that released a pair of popular albums, “Leaving Through the Window” (2002) and “North” (2003), that leaned toward pop-punk before going on hiatus the next year.
At that point, McMahon wanted to explore a more classic pop direction with his songwriting and decided to make a solo album under the band name Jack’s Mannequin.
That album, “Everything in Transit,” was ready for release when, in May 2005, McMahon’s world was turned upside down when he was diagnosed with cancer of the white blood cells or acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
On Aug. 23, 2005, the day “Everything in Transit” was released, he received a stem cell transplant from his sister, Katie.
The treatment was successful, and McMahon, having gone through that life-changing experience, returned to music, releasing two more Jack’s Mannequin albums, “The Glass Passenger” (2008) and “People and Things” (2011), before he transitioned to his current incarnation as Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.
As the newest songs were getting written, McMahon got together with his co-producers, Tommy English and Jeremy Hatcher, knowing that he wanted to work with a different instrumental/sonic palate than the mostly organic, largely piano-and-guitar centered, old-school pop-rock sound he crafted with producer Butch Walker on his previous album, 2018’s “Upside Down Flowers.”
What emerged was an album in “Tilt at the Wind No More” that liberally combines synthesizers, electronic tones and programmed rhythms with more traditional pop-rock songwriting and instrumental tones.
The mix of modern and organic works well, as McMahon has crafted some of his most immediately appealing songs to date. Perky songs like “Stars,” “Lying on the Hood of Your Car” and “New Friends” judiciously mix treated rhythms, synthesizers and other synthetic tones with guitars, piano and other traditional instruments. Other songs, like “Little Disaster,” “Built To Last” and “Smoke & Ribbons,” are ballads that feature a more sparse and moody sound. They contrast nicely with the album’s energetic songs.
The sonic treatments for the songs on “Tilt at the Wind No More” only emerged as McMahon, English and Hatcher worked on the tracks, and several songs (“Last Rites,” “Nobody Tells You When You’re Young” and “Smoke & Ribbons”) went through multiple, very different incarnations before finding the forms they take on the album.
“There wasn’t really an intended sound,” McMahon says. “Honestly, our original plan when I first met with Tommy, he’s like let’s get in a room with a bunch of different pianos and a drum set. … I think it was just what was in my brain for these songs was like creating a palate that felt really adventurous and sort of melded in with the organic sounds, which a lot of the programming that we did was with live drums. … You just kind of chase the thread, and I think we were all on that wavelength at the time.”
The Four Chord Music Fest comes to Washington’s Wild Things Park for two days, Aug. 12 and 13. Tickets.
Find out more about the Western Pennsylvania bands performing and the kick-off show on Aug. 11 at New Kensington’s Preserving showroom.
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