Something Corporate reunion & New Found Glory (‘Catalyst’ set) brought emo nostalgia to Asbury Park

You couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful summer weekend in Asbury Park as thousands of millennials in 2000s-era pop punk/emo shirts descended upon the boardwalk to relive their younger years at at least one of two shows: the reunited Something Corporate‘s first NJ show in over 14 years on Friday (8/23) and their former Drive-Thru labelmates New Found Glory (who SoCo namedrop in “I Want To Save You”) playing 2004’s Catalyst in full for its 20th anniversary on Saturday (8/24). They both headlined sold-out, packed shows at The Stone Pony’s outdoor summer stage, with the waning orange supermoon in the sky and the waves of the Atlantic ocean crashing in the background as 4,500 people reveled in the memories of an era that nostalgia is at an all time high for. The bars and restaurants on the boardwalk followed suit, blasting Warped Tour classics out of their windows before and after both shows. The shows weren’t officially tied together, but the timing of the back-to-back nights was perfect and I’m sure I’m not the only one who made it a point to go to both.

The New Found Glory show on Saturday began with the house music playing an array of hits that were popular around the time Catalyst came out (Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” The Strokes’ “Someday,” OutKast’s “Roses,” Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out,” Ashlee Simpson’s “Pieces Of Me,” D12’s “My Band,” Switchfoot’s “Meant to Live”), really setting the tone for what mainstream music looked like in that era and reminding you that New Found Glory had a place in it–their previous album Sticks and Stones broke them into the mainstream and Catalyst‘s lead single “All Downhill From Here” was pretty unavoidable on the radio and MTV in those days too. But while “All Downhill From Here” was infiltrating the pop sphere, Catalyst as a whole was leaving an enduring mark on the underground. New Found Glory always had a more direct connection to East Coast hardcore than most of the super popular pop punk bands, and they started leaning into that more overtly than ever on Catalyst, which was their heaviest album to date. As hardcore-informed pop punk (or easycore) began having a moment in the late 2000s, Catalyst was seen as a clear precursor to a lot of it and New Found Glory have gone on to give those younger bands platforms and sustain their own career in the process. If not for an album like Catalyst, New Found Glory might’ve ended up as a relic of the major label feeding frenzy on pop punk. Instead, they’ve endured.

At their Stone Pony Summer Stage show on Saturday, Jordan Pundik certainly looked like a seasoned hardcore frontperson as he led the band and the crowd through 14 songs of nonstop energy, and NFG had some help from some of those younger bands they influenced. Guitarist Chad Gilbert is sadly again in treatment for cancer and had to sit out this tour, so Four Year Strong guitarist/singer Dan O’Connor stepped up to fill Chad’s role, and Real Friends‘ Dave Knox is helping out with guitar, keyboards, and backing vocals too. Dan looked and sounded like he’s been in the band his entire life, and this lineup really did Chad so much justice. When drummer Cyrus Bolooki encouraged the crowd to scream loud enough for Chad to hear us all back home, the appreciation from everyone in attendance was palpable.

After first stepping foot on stage, NFG wasted no time launching into Catalyst‘s especially-hardcore-tinged opener “Intro.” A pit promptly broke out, and the on-stage and off-stage energy stayed at an 11/10 as they segued directly into the aforementioned hit “All Downhill From Here.” It’s kinda nice that the sequencing enabled NFG to get the album’s one big hit out of the way early, ensuring that it wouldn’t overshadow anything else on the classic LP. And it didn’t; the crowd was clearly filled with longtime fans and diehards who responded to even the deepest cuts with as much enthusiasm as the biggest hits. I got the sense from Jordan, Cyrus, and bassist Ian Grushka that they really don’t take it for granted that they’re able to play an album in full 20 years later to such a sizeable, fervent crowd, and they made sure to keep the experience as authentic as possible. They had the same power playing these songs in 2024 as they did back then.

Album anniversary tours are often a place for sharing some memories with the crowd, and the band jokingly argued on stage about how Ian and Cyrus still wish “Constant Static” made it onto the album but Jordan won out and got “I’d Kill to Fall Asleep” on there instead. (“If you didn’t cheer for that, you’re missing out on one of our best songs,” Ian said. “Yeah, you know ‘Constant Static,’ the song that’s only available on YouTube?”, Jordan jokingly retorted.) The band also talked about how New Jersey (where Jordan was born and lived until he was five years old) has been a home away from home since their earliest days, and reminisced about playing pool parties in Red Bank, Wayne Firehouse, and other small Jersey gigs as they were coming up.

After making it through all 14 songs of Catalyst, NFG played a handful of other favorites from throughout their career (“Understatement,” “Hit or Miss,” “Hold My Hand,” “Sincerely Me” [making its tour debut], “My Friends Over You,” and two of their Disney covers), and it was just as fiery and crowd-pleasing as the Catalyst portion. Right after ringing out the last chord of “My Friends Over You,” they went back to “Intro” from Catalyst and the pit opened up even more intensely the second time around. The set felt like it flew by, but it couldn’t have ended on a better note.

Unlike NFG, Something Corporate weren’t playing a full album, but their set was just as much of a time capsule. Other than playing their new single “Happy” (which worked perfectly alongside the classics in a live setting), every song they played came out between 2000 and 2003. They opened with “I Woke Up In A Car,” and from the moment Andrew McMahon started singing, you could just tell that this was going to be a great show, and that feeling never left. The band have still only played less than 15 shows since beginning this latest reunion, and they still sounded like they’ve consistently been doing this forever. The band is super tight, every member’s spirits were high, and Andrew’s soaring voice sounds even stronger than it did back in the day. It doesn’t hurt that their piano-fueled emo-pop songs have also aged really, really well. You don’t need “emo nostalgia” to appreciate Something Corporate’s music; it’s just great pop songwriting.

They played pretty much every song you’d want to hear, from the bangers like “Punk Rock Princess,” “I Want to Save You,” “Space,” “Hurricane,” and “If You C Jordan” to all 10 minutes of “Konstantine” and a fully acoustic version of “Wait,” which they hadn’t performed since 2010. They also covered Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” during the encore, which Andrew said the band barely knew how to play (and he had the lyrics on stage with him), but they pulled it off, big crowd singalong included. They broke the set up with clips of all five members giving video interviews back in the day, and on-stage stories about the band’s earliest days. It seemed like it was genuinely surreal for them to be playing these songs to a sold-out crowd 20+ years later, and, like NFG, they gave it up for how important Jersey has been for the band their whole career. It was also an especially sentimental night for Andrew McMahon, who was celebrating the 19th anniversary of being declared cancer free. Not only has the band been able to have a second and third life, but Andrew himself talked about feeling like he personally has had that too. You could just feel appreciation and gratitude from all different angles.

The SoCo show had more aughts-era emo from NJ’s own Hidden In Plain View, and the NFG show had a great newer band, Sincere Engineer, reminding the nostalgic crowd that this scene/community is still pushing forward.

Check out NFG and SoCo’s setlists and some videos below…

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Something Corporate @ Stone Pony Summer Stage – 8/23/24 Setlist (via)
I Woke Up in a Car
Straw Dog
As You Sleep
I Want to Save You
Drunk Girl
She Paints Me Blue
Space
Watch the Sky
The Astronaut
Fall
21 and Invincible
Ruthless
Only Ashes
Me and the Moon
Hurricane
Happy
Cavanaugh Park
Punk Rock Princess

Encore:
Wait (Acoustic; first time since 2010)
Konstantine
I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing (Aerosmith cover)
If You C Jordan

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New Found Glory @ Stone Pony Summer Stage – 8/24/24 Setlist
Catalyst:
Intro
All Downhill From Here
This Disaster
Truth of My Youth
I Don’t Wanna Know
Your Biggest Mistake
Doubt Full
Failure’s Not Flattering
Over the Head, Below the Knees
Ending in Tragedy
At Least I’m Known for Something
I’d Kill to Fall Asleep
No News Is Good News
Who Am I

Part of Your World (Little Mermaid cover)
Understatement
Hit or Miss
Hold My Hand
Sincerely Me
Let It Go (Frozen cover)
My Friends Over You
Intro (Reprise)