When the recently reunited Yellowcard received an offer to do a full headlining tour this past summer, the band members’ reaction wasn’t what one might expect as they saw a routing full of outdoor amphitheaters.
“We were quite frankly terrified when the offer came to us,” singer-guitarist Ryan Key revealed in a video interview. “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 LiveNation ‘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 were booked into Daily’s Place, a 5,500-capacity amphitheater. Key initially had troubling visions of a one-third-full venue bouncing through in his head.
“It’s not the best look. So I was just like it’s a hometown show. Why are we tempting fate?” Key said. “And the show sold out so fast off just like the initial pre-sale, they then came to us and said they would like to add a second show at Daily’s Place.”
That second show sold out as well. Clearly, something had changed while the members of Yellowcard moved on with no expectations to ever be a band again.
“With 100 percent certainty, I can tell you we had no plans to do what we’re doing now. It was very much the end,” Key said.
But then came an offer to play at Riot Fest in Chicago in summer 2022 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…
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