by: Matt Lambert
The Get Up Kids at Big Night Live with Smoking Popes October 3ed 2024
The Get Up Kids are one of the most if not the most influential bands of the "second wave" of the emo music scene. For those who are unaware, emo music is a sub-genre of punk-rock, that can be controversial because well, all music is emotional right? Anyway, their album "Something to Write Home About" turns 25 years old this year *gulp* and it still stands up to be one of the best albums they have made.
They came to Boston's Big Night Live, the same night as Sabrina Carpenter was next door at TD Garden. But BNL was packed to the gills with all the "elder emos" and some younger ones too, but mostly people who were teens/early 20s back in 1999. They blasted through the fantastic 12 song album and then played extras such as seminal hits like "Mass Pike" (you have to play that when you're in Boston...) and "Don't Hate Me" from their first album "Four Minute Mile." It was a great night, and The Get Up Kids proved they still have it after all these years!
Chicago IL's Smoking Popes opened the show. This was the first time I had seen them. They were a band I always heard about but never took time to listen to. They started in 1991, have had a few hiatuses but have been playing shows since their reunion in 2005. Good, solid pop-punk that reminded me a little of Alkaline Trio, which could be considered one of their contemporaries. It was a good match for a gig celebrating some punk music from the 90s that still stands strong today.