Hawthorne Heights, Thursday, Cartel, Anberlin, Emery, This Wild Life

Toyota Music Factory, Irving, Tx

August 26, 2024

Review and Gallery By: Militza Reyna

The Toyota Music Factory opened its doors to American Rock band Hawthorne Heights and their “20 Years of Tears Tour” to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of their debut album “The Silence In Black And White”. 

Acoustic Rock duo This Wild Life were the first ones to go on stage. The duo opened their set list with ”Concrete” and “Positively Negative”. This Wild Life also did a cover of “Cute Without the ‘E’ (Cut From the Team)” by Taking Back Sunday, this made the fans sing along. 

Next up was Emery, they opened their set with “The Ponytail Parades” followed by “Disguising Mistakes With Goodbyes” fans sang along with Emery while they continued to sing “Studying Politics”.

American Alternative Rock band Anberlin took center stage next. The band consists of lead vocalist Stephen Christian, guitarists Joseph Milligan and Christian McAlhaney, bassist Deon Rexroat, and drummer Nathan Young. In 2023, Matty Mullins from Memphis May Fire took over as the lead touring vocalist for Anberlin, it was a small shock for the crowd as many did not know of this change but they were happy regardless.

Matty’s energy could be felt through their whole set as he sang songs such as “The Resistance”, “Walk Alone”, “Paperthin Hymn” and “The Feel Good Drag”. At one point during the night Matty mentioned how grateful he was that the fans were receiving him with open arms as the tour vocalist and will do his best to not let anyone down.

Cartel were the fourth band to take over the stage, their set included fan favorites such as “Burn This City”, “Runaway”, “Say Anything (Else)” and “Honestly”. The fans sang along to every song.

Thursday opened their set with “For the Workforce, Drowning”, “Cross Out the Eyes” and “Signals Over the Air”. As the night progressed, the fans were singing along to every word, which helped keep the momentum going for the rest of the night.

The lights dimmed down and the crowd started to cheer as Hawthorne Heights took over the stage. They would be the sixth and final band to be on stage.

This tour was to celebrate 20 years of their debut album “The Silence in Black and White” which they played in full. Starting off with “Life on Standby”, “Dissolve and Decay”and “Niki FM”. fans cheered and created mosh and circle pits as they were taken back in time throughout the night.

When it was time to bring the night to an end, vocalist JT Woodruff came down from the stage and joined the crowd in the middle and thanked everyone for being there celebrating 20 years of Hawthorne Heights. He also said that they “forgave everyone for stealing” their music, because if the fans wouldn’t have done that “we wouldn’t be here”, and with this small introduction the band started to sing their final song and fan favorite “Ohio Is for Lovers”.  The crowd went wild and sang their emo little hearts out which brought the nostalgic night to a wonderful end.