Silverstein marks 20-year milestone
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. » Asa music-lover, I can honestly say that I enjoy all genres, but the songs that I hold nearest and dearest to my heart come from a specific group of rock bands that became popular in the early to mid-2000s.
Call me an emo kid, but this music changed my life.
Last week I was lucky enough to see two of those bands, Silverstein and Four Year Strong, perform on the stage of a venue that holds some of my greatest teenage memories. That would be then-Northern Lights now Upstate Concert Hall in Clifton Park.
“It will always be Northern Lights to us,” Silverstein frontman Shane Told said to Wednesday night’s audience.
“We’ve been coming here for a very long time,” he continued, going on to share that while lots has changed throughout the band’s history, this local venue and the crowd inside it have largely stayed the same.
The Canadian rockers may be feeling a bit nostalgic on this tour, which started just a few days before the Clifton Park show because 2020 marks their 20th anniversary as a band.
For Told, and some of his bandmates, that’s more than half their age. And the majority of Silverstein fans have been listening to the band for the majority of their lives, too. So when Silverstein plays hits from its breakthrough album Discovering the Waterfront like “Smile in Your Sleep” it’s always a fun throwback.
Meanwhile, Silverstein is still forging a future for this genre, with its latest record A Beautiful Place to Drown, which just made its debut on March 6.
Just one year younger than Silverstein is the Massachusetts-based band Four Year Strong, who also have a brand new release called Brain Pain. Like their Canadian tourmates, the guys in Four Year Strong have been playing Upstate Concert Hall for more than a decade as well. And just like when I was in high school, I’m always happy to be dancing in the crowd when Four Year Strong is on stage performing fan favorites like “Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die.”
Supporting Silverstein and Four Year Strong on this special tour is I The Mighty. Though this California group has been around since 2007, the recent show was my first time seeing this act live - and I was certainly impressed.
While I’ll never get sick of listening to emo albums of my youth, it’s always exciting when I discover something new to add to my playlist.
As the artists and the songs of this particular music scene grow older, I’ve come to greatly respect those that have stood the test of time. Kudos to Silverstein, Four Year Strong, and I The Mighty for keeping emo alive in 2020.