It’s the summer of 2002. The emo/screamo/post-hardcore genre has been on the rise, with bands like Taking Back Sunday, Thursday, Brand New and Dashboard Confessional spreading through the underground, while Jimmy Eat World was breaking through. And earlier that summer, a new voice was bubbling up. A crackling, guttural scream with a keen sense of melody. It was the voice of Bert McCracken, and his band The Used.
Their self-titled album released in June of 2002, and Los Angeles’ KROQ was one of the first to jump on lead single “The Taste of Ink”. The rousing track had reached my ears and won me over, so when I heard that KROQ was putting on a free show for The Used at the Troubadour, I gathered my friends and made sure we were early in line. As we waited, pizza and punch were handed out, along with free band t-shirts. The band members themselves even stopped by and chatted with attendees waiting for the show. And when the show finally began, my friends and I were the first to start the mosh pit as the band played songs from their thrilling debut album.
Cut to 23 years later, two platinum and one gold album later, and I’m in Anaheim as The Used are playing their first of three shows at the House of Blues, celebrating 25 years as a band. Each night they are playing different album in full, and I am there to relive that summer of 2002 with my new wife to hear the band play their self-titled album in full. As one can imagine, the venue is sold-out with the band’s oldest of old school fans in attendance. The ones who know every word of the album and likely have a tattoo or two of a lyric somewhere on their body.
Opening the night were up-and-comers Crooked Teeth, who have made a couple appearances in the past in our NMF playlists. What I like about this group is that they are very aware of who they are and what they sound like, often shouting out “Drive-Thru Records”, “TRL” and “Fuse” to make it clear what era of pop-punk inspired them. And as frontman Tyson Evans said in his charming, sheepish way, they are music fans just like us, who were thrilled to be opening for The Used.
Musically, the five piece band has some very catchy tunes (“Over Myself” and closer “Beg” were stand-outs) which they mixed in with a couple cuts from their recent covers EP (like Rise Against‘s “Swing Life Away”). Guitarist Livi Taylor and drummer Jayson Hayes showed off incredible musicality and stole the show at times. Joining Tyson on vocals was Megg, a rising solo artist who just this last week released a new single (which was in our NMF coverage) and has a new EP on the way. When trading vocals, this dynamic worked well, though Megg is such a powerful singer, she often overshadowed Tyson when doing harmonies. These guys already have earned millions of streams, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt if you checked out some of their tracks. They’re an endearing young group who I’m routing for.
A screen covered the stage as The Used‘s crew set-up. As the countdown to the show began, a video hit the screen, displaying a TV and the debut album’s artwork. A video montage played, with short clips of the band in their heyday, and quotes from Bert and Jepha (the two remaining original members) talking about their love of playing and being in the band. It was a great set-up for when the screen dropped, and the band appeared and went right into “Maybe Memories”.
Knowing this was a full-album show, there wasn’t going to be any surprises as to what the set-list would be. This was a celebration of an album, and the band stayed faithful to the tracklist, following the opener with their hit single “The Taste of Ink”. All hands were in the air, as every member of the crowd sang along with McCracken, “I’ll savor every moment of it.”
The person most savoring these moments was McCracken. One of the most noticeable differences between this show and the one two decades prior was that the frontman looked healthy, and genuinely happy. McCracken touched on his battles with an eating disorder with the anthemic third song, “Bulimic”, and with addiction on the harsh, chaotic “Say Days Ago”. Seeing him now, it was clear McCracken was sober and in a place where he could accept and return the crowd’s love, and appreciate the moment he was living in.
The next highlight of the show came with the second single from the album, the powerful “Buried Myself Alive”, which provided another cathartic moment with the audience joining McCracken with the track’s lyrical hook “You’re gonna have to ask nicer than that”, with McCracken having some fun at the end, changing the lyrics to a joyous f***-off to the song’s spurned ex. For the album’s harsher songs, McCracken received vocal help from current guitarist Joey Bradford, but McCracken did contribute a few piercing screams when a higher register was called for.
McCracken was not shy throughout the night, declaring the cutting “A Box Full of Sharp Objects” one of the best songs ever written, while revealing “Blue and Yellow” was one of his favorite songs in the band’s catalog, and encouraged the audience to sing along even if they didn’t know the words. He did share a nice moment with Jepha towards the end of the set, when the two broke out an acoustic guitar for the quieter “On My Own”, before having the band return for the crashing “Pieces Mended”, and the throat-shredding hidden track “Choke Me”.
The band made their thank you’s to the audience and threw out some drum sticks and setlist before exiting. While many fans (including myself) stuck around hoping for a couple bonus songs for the encore, alas, it was not to be. Still, it was great to see that McCracken and Jepha truly savoring every moment of this milestone show as much as the fans. And every fan there seemed happy to relive their early 2000’s memories with this album. Congrats on 25 years boys. Happy to have been there from the early days until now.
Throwback to this early 2000’s classic in celebration of the band here.
The Indy Review 