A `SICK' TOUR
The four bands hitting town this week on the Sick Tour — New Found Glory, Bayside, Movielife and ex-Yellowcard frontman William Ryan Key — are all on the front lines of pop and punk. All are second-wave acts who've made it to veteran status. More to the point, they're all bands who enjoy hanging out together.
“It's a unique tour in the sense that we're all superclose. There's usually a lot more politics, agents and managers involved,” Bayside frontman Anthony Raneri said.
Added New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert, “It's all about touring with your friends. It just works out that a lot of our fans are fans of theirs, too. The name comes from our album, `Makes Me Sick,' but that's also what people said when we told them about it — `That's a sick tour.' ”
On their 20th anniversary tour last year, New Found Glory played virtually everything they've ever recorded, doing two of their 10 studio albums per night.
“The only problem was that you may not have heard one of our big songs, depending on which albums you got that night,” Gilbert said. “This time we're doing everything every night, and we've got some interactive things with the audience, like bringing people onstage to sing.”
You also might hear them do Survivor's “Eye of the Tiger” and Peter Cetera's “Glory of Love,” both of which have turned up on recent set lists. Having fun with cover tunes is a longtime band tradition; the band has done two albums of soundtrack hits and plan a third next year. But, no, they don't claim to love every song they've covered.
“We turn them into songs we could like, though,” Gilbert said. “I can't say I've listened to a lot of Celine Dion and we've covered her. We do songs that have had some impact on popular culture. Our fans and our band all grew up with `The Goonies' and `Karate Kid' era of movies. It just reminds our fans that we have the same reference points they do.”
The themes in Bayside's music can be a little heavier. Their breakthrough album, “The Walking Wounded,” was written in the wake of a tragic road crash they experienced. The recent release, “Vacancy,” deals lyrically with Raneri's divorce. In both cases, the band pushed itself to say something more hopeful.
”Hard times can be inspiring,” Raneri said. “I did a lot of yelling in the old days because that was cathartic, and there are plenty of bands that are screaming and angry. I got through that and wanted to add some messages of hope, to say that hard times end and new things can start. You look at any kind of music, whether it's pop songs or hip-hop, and what lasts is the music that means something. To me, the melodies and catchy music are the way you grab people's hearts and minds, and the lyrics are what you do when you've grabbed them.”
Bayside will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2020.
“I was 17 when we started this band, so I've now been in it for longer than I haven't, and it's pretty much all I know in life,” Raneri said. “We could have gone for the crossover success on our first album, which was a real possibility at the time, with bands like Good Charlotte and Taking Back Sunday becoming pop stars. But I think we realized that it was all going to be about longevity.”