It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost twenty years since Taking Back Sunday released the iconic Tell All Your Friends and fifteen years since their fan favorite follow up album Where You Want to Be. Both would be played live in their entirety much to the delight of the fans at the House of Blues in Orlando during the second of two shows.
The decision to play Where You Want to Be was on tonight’s set list by total chance, as the night before it was up to lady luck and a coin toss. Singer Adam Lazzara had the crowd pick heads or tails. Heads, the band would play Louder Now. Tails, they play Where You Want to Be. And as luck would have it, heads was the verdict.
The moment the neon panther logo illuminates above the drums the show and nostalgia begin. Taking Back Sunday hit the stage with a ton of energy as they belted out the first handful of tracks off Tell All Your Friends.
Singer Adam Lazzara touches on how incredible it is that the band is celebrating its twentieth anniversary and how this opportunity brought him from a small town in North Carolina to taking a chance on moving to New York to join the band.
He also touched on how “Great Romances of the Twenty-First Century” was the first song that the band had ever written just before they delivered it live. Another story was told by Adam and original guitar player John Nolan about the origin of “Timberwolves at New Jersey.”
The story goes that while they lived in an apartment in New York City, the guys had a TV, but no cable service. So as they watched the green and grainy images on their set, Adam told John, “I’m going to write a song about the next thing I hear on the TV.” A commercial aired for the NBA game between two teams. As they laugh with the crowd, he goes on to say “I didn’t even know they were basketball team’s man. I just assumed New Jersey had a massive outbreak of wolves.”
Before we all knew it, the band had blown through all ten songs of that monumental album and are now delivering us their epic follow up, Where You Want To Be. This is yet another terrific record with a laundry list of hits like “Bonus Mosh Pt. II”, “Number Five with a Bullet” and “This Photograph Is Proof”.
Like the first half of the set, Taking Back Sunday played every note of every song with such emotion and intensity that you can only stare and marvel at the fact that they do this back to back nights every couple of days over the course of almost a month and a half.
After the band concludes their second full album of the night, they proved their endurance once again by ripping a three song encore concluding with the smash hit “Make Damn Sure.” And what better way to finish off a triumphant show then to have confetti explode into the air and blanket the floor as fans jump and throw their hands up in excitement.
It was a real treat to be able to watch Adam Lazzara, John Nolan, Mark O’Connell and Shaun Cooper bring all that talent and put on such a great show from start to finish. As well as Taking Back Sunday’s successful anniversary tour, the band has also released a greatest hits album Twenty. The collection of the bands biggest songs also includes two unreleased tracks.
Be sure to check out Taking Back Sunday’s tour schedule HERE.
Review and photos by Rob Cella
