The Get Up Kids brought a dose of emo nostalgia to a sold out Beachland Ballroom Wednesday (February 19, 2025) night. They’re currently on tour for the 25th anniversary of their seminal album, ‘Something to Write Home About,’ playing the album in its entirety, as well as some other fan favorites. They brought their A-game, solidifying just how truly great the album still is all these years later.
The Anniversary opened with a short but packed 12-song set. The two bands made a perfect pairing. Both bands were prominent on the emo scene around the early 2000s before going the route of all emo bands and deciding they didn’t want to be emo bands anymore. So, with all this in mind, it only felt natural to have both bands there. They also toured together in the late 90s. The Get Up Kids even mention “Anniversary songs” in the lyrics to “Valentine” off Something to Write Home About.
When The Get Up Kids walked on stage, guitarist Jim Suptic said, “Tonight is 25 years in the making, and there’s no place we’d rather be than Cleveland, Ohio. Just so you know, tonight’s going to be the best show of the entire tour,” and the crowd erupted. “Let’s do this,” and the band wasted no time getting to the opening track on the album, “Holiday,” lead vocalist and guitarist Matt Pryor kicking it off with that famous pick slide. The nostalgia hit right away.
Early in their career, the band fought the idea of nostalgia and even changed their sound a few times over the years, trying to shake the “emo” moniker, much to the dismay of their early fans. They’ve also had their rocky patches over the years, so it was great to see them having so much fun playing these particular songs. They’ve made comments in recent years about how they’re getting along better than ever, and you could see that on stage. Even the famously tight-lipped Pryor was smiling and having a good time.
The audience might have helped the atmosphere as well. At one point, Suptic egged on the crowd a bit during the singalong portion of “Out of Reach,” when he urged the crowd to be as loud as possible and then claimed that Detroit had been louder. This, of course, brought out the most in the crowd for the next attempt. Pryor then said the crowd was the loudest of the tour. It might have been general stage banter, but he sold it so well, and the audience was so loud, that it was believable.
Two elements made the night especially great.
1) The amount of fun the band was having on stage.
2) The venue. These guys were having a genuinely great time out there, laughing and smiling the entire time.
Pryor and bassist Rob Pope even poked a bit of fun at Suptic a few times after he said Cincinnati instead of Cleveland. Suptic immediately corrected himself, but the words were out, and the guys laughed at him the rest of the night, calling Suptic the “King of Cincinnati.” It was a blast to watch Suptic and bassist Rob Pope jump around with crazy energy during “I’m a Loner Dottie, a Rebel,” Then Suptic and keyboardist Dustin Kinsey came out after the set to kick off the encore with the wonderful “Campfire Kansas,” as drummer Ryan Pope followed to excitedly play the tambourine, standing directly next to Suptic the entire time, both laughing.
As for the venue, The Beachland Ballroom is a 500-capacity space, which makes a show like this so intense. They could have easily played in a larger room on this tour, but having a smaller venue felt like what I imagine it was like seeing them play at a club 25 years ago, with maybe a few more gray temples in the crowd than there used to be.
As much as I like this album, and The Get Up Kids in general, I was still surprised at how much fun the show was. The album itself certainly deserves to be revisited. It helped make the word “emo” a household term in 1999. And if you were a skateboarding Midwestern high schooler in the early 2000s, like yours truly, it was inescapable, which no doubt helped make the show a good time. It was a blast to see the album played in its entirety. That schtick only works for the most memorable of albums, and this is certainly one of them. The cherry on top was the encore of at least eight more songs, all of which were crowd-pleasers. It was like a setlist of all hits.
So, even if it was a night of nostalgia, the energy was one of growth and revitalization. It’s easy for a nostalgia show to seem a bit stale. That was not the case Wednesday night. It was a night packed with energy and excitement, and it helped breathe new life into these songs.
© 2025 CleveRock Music Portal. A PROUD SHAPE CLEVELAND PRODUCTION