Yellowcard Celebrates

It’s hard to define the music of the band Yellowcard. The Jacksonville, Florida band has been labeled Pop Punk, Alternative Metal, Post-Grunge, and even good ole Rock N Roll. One thing everyone agrees on is the staying power of their very first album, the 2002 album Ocean Avenue.

The group, who disbanded in 2016 after 19 years of playing together, got together again at the 2022 Riot Fest in Chicago to celebrate the album’s 20th anniversary. Members Ryan Key, Sean Mackin, Ryan Mendez, and Josh Portman decided they enjoyed it as much as the crowd and they needed a much bigger celebration. They put together a full tour for 2023 to honor the album. Yellowcard also simultaneously released a brand-new EP, Childhood Eyes for their fans.

The five songs in Childhood Eyes include a song by the same name, as well as “The Places We’ll Go,” “Honest from the Jump,” and “Hiding from the Light.” “Three Minutes More,” rounds it out and is a bit different as it includes Chris Carabba of the band Dashboard Confessional. The songs were well received, and additional concert dates were added for the summer of 2023. The tour even went international, most notably with a soldout concert at Camden Underworld in London.

I was invited to the Yellowcard 20th Anniversary of Ocean Avenue Tour concert at St. Louis Music Park last month. I had never been to this Gateway City venue before. I was happily surprised about how small and casual the open air arena was in comparison to the much larger spots in other cities they were playing in. Even though it was one of the hottest days of the summer, concertgoers took advantage of the room to dance and move around, mostly standing throughout the event.

The band decided to take their message about the tour to heart and actually played the album in order from start to finish. They even remarked about how this left the title song “Ocean Avenue” as the third song, rather than the encore it would normally get. I found it refreshing for the crowd to know what song was coming next. There was a different anticipation that everyone seemed to enjoy. It ironically made a lot of sense to end the concert with the album's last song, “Back Home.”

Also playing on the tour was Story of the Year. Back home was definitely a theme as this band is from St. Louis band. Story of the Year was also celebrating an album anniversary. For them it was 20 years since their Page Avenue album was released. They did things a little differently than Yellowcard, mixing in the songs from other records, including their popular “We Don’t Care Anymore,” a crowd favorite.

Rounding out the concert schedule was This Wildlife, a California band that formed in 2010. Between acts, Late Night DJ Emo Night Brooklyn kept the crowd going. Mayday Parade also played at some of the venues, but not this one.

Yellowcard will be finishing the 2023 anniversary tour at the When We Were Young music festival in Las Vegas.