Images: Mayday Parade, This Wild Life, William Ryan Key, Oh Weatherly October 12, 2018 at Vinyl Las Vegas

Mayday Parade put on a powerful show to celebrate their new album release: Sunnyland at Vinyl earlier this month. The emo 5 piece from Tallahassee, FL,  ran up on stage with an abundance of overwhelmed fans screaming as loud as they could with excitement. That excitement grew when they started their set with “Never Sure,” which is also the opening track to Sunnyland.

Something I really like about their set is they played some popular punk rock covers acoustically, like “My Friends Of You” by the godfathers of pop punk, New Found Glory, “I’m Not Okay” by everyone’s favorite emo band My Chemical Romance and “Cute Without The E (Cut From the Team)” by Taking Back Sunday. After playing the acoustic chorus of “Jaime All Over” from the band’s own 2007 release A Lesson In Romantics, they transitioned into full bandonce more.

If you were a fan of the Punk Goes Pop albums you were in luck, as they played their cover of “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye from volume 5. They also  Included some songs played  on piano like “Three Cheers For Five Years” off of 2006’s Tales Told by Dead Friends, “Stay” from 2011 Self Titled album and, of course, fan favorite “Miserable At Best.”

Acoustic band This Wild Life from Long Beach, CA, approached the stage and announced that they were the “Mumford & Sons of emo.” One of the highlights of the night was when they played  “Puppy Love,” a song about how much frontman Kevin Jordan loves his dog. It’s fantastic.

Almost all the bands that night did covers, and This Wild Life was no exception.. They did a ukulele cover of Blink 182’s “All The Small Things” that transitioned right into “First Date.” Part of their fun setlist was “Catie Rae” from the new album Petaluma and “No More Bad Days” off their Clouded was album. This Wild Life has always been a fun band to watch live, and crowd participation really made this a show to remember.

William Ryan Key you may know from a little band called Yellowcard. He now tours on his own playing his own acoustic music. Key is starting over, starting fresh, and however you want to put it, he’s doing it. Touring in just a van, which he hasn’t done since 2002, paying for everything since he isn’t on a label and thanking the fans for doing his marketing for him.

He serenaded the crowd with his on originals “Downtown (Up North)” and “The Bowery” from his upcoming ep Virtue that comes out November 30th. Key’s debut ep got some attention too by playing “Vultures.” In addition to all that he always stays true to the fans and played “Ocean Avenue,” the popular song that got Yellowcard where they were and where he is today. Ecstatic fans belted out every word. Let’s keep the support up and hope he can do this on his own.

Openers, Oh, Weatherly are an up in coming band from Dallas, TX who are making a name for themselves. They sound like they’re following Mayday Parades footsteps, with a bit of WSRT of Neck Deep thrown in for good measure.

They had a little technical difficulties with their earpieces malfunctioning, which caused them to play off time. Instead of getting mad about it, they just laughed it off.

As the show continued, vocalist Blake Roses spoke out about losing his father, which brought him to a dark place. This inspired the song “Dark Of The Night.” The band and the crowd screamed out the lyrics “we’re doing fine,” which was cathartic.  The band mostly played songs off their new album Lips Like Oxygen like “Chasing California,” “I Think I Want You” and “Here Tonight.” They threw in one from their Lost Night and Heavy Hearts album, “Lost and Found.” I think this band will be doing big things very soon. Be on the lookout.

-Kyle Voigt

Photos by Cameron Gile | https://www.instagram.com/camerongile/