“You’re doing (expletive) great,” Hawthorne Heights vocalist-guitarist JT Woodruff reminded the thousands fans who showed up for the California edition of the band’s Is For Lovers traveling festival.
As the emo rock band ripped through songs like “Saying Sorry” and the popular cut that gave the festival its name, “Ohio Is For Lovers,” Woodruff offered several words of encouragement.
“There was a time when no one gave a (expletive) about us,” he said, referring to the earlier days of this incarnation the emo/screamo scene of the late ’90s and early ’00s. “Look at us now.”
Though the songs are by design “emotional,” there were a lot of smiles during the single-day fest that brought together fans of the emo and screamo music genres on a warm, sunny Southern California day at Oak Canyon Park in Silverado on Saturday, Aug. 26. They took in sets by Alkaline Trio, Thrice, Sleeping With Sirens, Bayside, Thursday, Atreyu, Touché Amoré, Norma Jean, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Further Seems Forever and more while reveling in the nostalgia of the music that first hit their ears back when MySpace was thriving.
Bands played nonstop from the time the doors opened with acts appearing on two stages with no set overlap. In between watching the bands, fans shopped in the vendor tents, which offered a variety of clothing items, vinyl records, posters and a lot of emo/Halloween-themed wares and gifts.
They also participated in a dunk-a-punk charity game and offered three chances to show off their pitching skills in an effort to send various performing artists into the dunk tank. As a throwback to all of the wonderful side-swept, teased up bangs and oh-so-thick-and-dark eyeliner looks of the early ’00s, there was a MySpace Your Face booth that provided some quick emo makeovers and a MySpace Top 8 banner backdrop to take photos with.
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