Every year, the When We Were Young event features several very prominent emo and pop-punk acts from the 2000s. People can scarcely wait to listen to the beloved songs that they grew up with as this nostalgic music festival is scheduled to start in Las Vegas in October 2022.
Iconic Emo and Pop Punk Bands from the 2000s Form the Lineup. The We Were Young lineup seems to be a collection of bands that, in the early 2000s, most definitely reflected the core of emo and pop punk genres. Among the bands honoring the event are Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Jimmy Eat World, AFI, The Used, and Bright Eyes. Among the musicians named in the support acts are Thrice, Dashboard Confessional, and Plot to Blow up the Eiffel Tower, Taking Back Sunday, The All-American Rejects, and Boys Like Girls. It is clear that When We Were Young will be a journey down memory lane for those who grew up listening to alternative music as several artists who released their most successful albums in the 2000s are featured.
The Festival Will Take Place in Las Vegas on Various Dates. When We Were Young is a music event spanning many days, not just one show. The Las Vegas Festival Ground is supposed to host the celebration on October 22, 23, and 29, 2022. Three separate dates have been scheduled for these events so that every fan may have an opportunity to see this historic concert.
Given more than fifty musicians are scheduled for three days, one might reasonably assume that When We Were Young will feature overlapping performance times over many stages, much like typical multi-day music events. That lets the spectators better manage their time and alternate between some of the performances of their preferred bands from long ago.
On the other hand, tickets for the event scheduled before the automobile sales had been sold out immediately from the moment they were issued for sale. The moment Pre-sale tickets started showing on the Internet when We Were Young was announced in January 2022. The enormous public reaction meant that all those pre-sale tickets sold in less than an hour. People were intrigued by this pop-punk music event, and since it's happening this October, its appeal will only keep rising.
Although all the pre-sale tickets have been sold, there are other ways through which fans can get passes to the concert. The next rounds of tickets are due to go on sale next Friday, 21st of January at 10:00 AM, PT. Taking into perspective the previous instance where seats were sold within a short time anyone who is still willing to buy the ticket will have to wait for the next pre-sale date. Fortunately, the festival has even introduced a third date on October 29th to help address the need.
It targets music patrons ranging from their late 20s to mid-30s. Since the bands in the lineup are those that were most popular in the 2000s, When We Were Young is bound to appeal to those who are now in their late 20s, or mid-30s and other young adults who are interested in the alternative music scene. To many people who attended concerts during these years, these bands and albums were their high school and college anthems. Watching them live is something I believe will take me back to such times. This is why enthusiasts who may have swapped their band t-shirts for business suits are willing to blow off the dust on their Chucks for one more spin and celebrate like it is 2005.
For an audience that is now in their settled careers or parenting today, ‘When We Were Young’ provides the perfect opportunity for the audience to sing along to some of the best bands of their youthful days. Well, it is an opportunity to step out of the everyday adult reality and jam it again. And early ticket sale success proves there is a wide demographic of music lovers willing to do so in Las Vegas this October.
It is part of a nostalgic wave that has recently emerged in the pop-punk genre. When We Were Young comes at a time that can easily be described as the revival or at least the increased attention on pop-punk bands of the 2000s. Some of the bands that would play the festival have reunited for tours or new albums or both in the past few years. My Chemical Romance, who reunited in 2019, is back on tour. Paramore and Bright Eyes are back after hiatuses that lasted long between their albums. Jimmy Eat World continued to record songs but released music that is twenty years old on Bleed American.
On the same note, current pop-punk revivalist groups such as Machine Gun Kelly, Willow, jxdn, and KennyHoopla have not been shy about crediting the 2000s bands for their impact. If there was a place that could be considered the main hub of all this longing for the pop-punk/emo scene of the 2000s, When We Were Young could be it. It is the affirmation of an entire musical generation for a millennial generation that cannot be left behind.
Will There Be Any Special Collaborations On Stage? Given that so many icons take the When We Were Young stages, fans surely wonder if that means the door is open for surprise collaborations during the festival. As soon as My Chemical Romance and Paramore are on the bill, dreams of a momentous combination soon follow. Even if that precise conception is not going to transpire, one might think that some of the bands will engage themselves to perform on each other’s popular tracks.
However, spontaneous performances by artists not previously agreed to are also part of the excitement of a rock festival. Another factor that is important to acknowledge is that when different members of different bands like and appreciate each other, the chemistry between them starts to develop and becomes good most of the time, and this automatically leads to magic during the performance. It could be Hayley Williams singing a duet with Dashboard Confessional “Hands Down” style or Gerard Way collaborating with Max Bemis from Say Anything doing a classic 90s song. Fans can dream, right?
When We Were Young Proves That Emo Music Is Here to Stay Though it might have been most popular in the late 90s and early 2000s, emo music has carved a niche for itself in the overall spectrum of popular music. That When We Were Young is still a thing that is being celebrated today proves that emo is still culturally relevant even after more than twenty years. It also sustains a tradition and a relationship with its audience, including elder millennials, who acknowledge contemporary bands, such as My Chemical Romance, as the previous generations did acknowledging the legendary bands of the classic rock genre.
Emo is not as popular today in the mainstream. But it also has not sunk to absolute oblivion as new artists still take traces of the genre’s recognition. When We Were Young should be a testament that the emo bands that defined angsty teenage years are as nostalgic and beloved to the grown-up individuals those teenagers grew to become. It is a timely wake-up call for everyone that the archetypal groups of the genre are not just phase bands. They created works that remain virtually, and emotionally connected to an audience of millions even today.
Can we expect more such nostalgic music festivals in the future? The hype of When We Were Young brings up an interesting question – whether the success would mean more festivals based on millennial nostalgia. Here are some clues that suggest that the answer is yes.
Now, after the Warped Tour cancellation this year, When We Were Young takes place to meet the fans who are looking for shows with old-school tastes in various alternative genres. But as millennials age along with the artists they came of age listening to, it appears both generations are more than willing to keep partying into the past. Festivals aspiring for pure nostalgia have tremendous appeal.
It is quite easy to imagine similar festivals When We Were Young emo bands of the 2000s, pop-punk bands of the 90s, and the beloved ska-punk bands of the late 90s. If the level of interest in When We Were Young translates to ticket sales this October, then one can be certain that promoters will take note of this interest from the elderly. Perhaps, more such nostalgic alt-rock music festivals may become a norm in the following years.
The October Debut Gathers Closer even though When We Were Young is still several months away, fans are eagerly waiting for October 22nd as they want to return to the 2000s emo era. Based on the quick sales and still, the inclusion of an extra date to accommodate people, there is evidence that the event is likely to meet the high demand. For one glorious weekend and now an additional day, the musicians who packed out stadiums and ruled the pop charts in the early years of the millennium will take fans back to the days of the power ballad, fringes, and thick drawn-on eyebrows.
When We Were Young is an escape, an emotional journey that a generation struggling with the looming responsibility of growing up wishes to make. Get ready, Las Vegas. The return of the former mall goths and pop-punk kids is expected this October.
