A co-headline tour is a beautiful thing. It’s the two bands you’ve wanted to see for years, in the same place, at the same time. It’s a micro music festival in motion through the country. In this case it’s a duo whose fans have considerable overlap. Manchester Orchestra and Jimmy Eat World, main acts of The Amplified Echoes Tour, have no problem filling a venue independently. But together they command a packed room, with concertgoers appearing early, certain not to miss the first few songs of headliner number one.
“Finally I felt the calming breeze, stepping out to watch the final scene,” Andy Hull, lead vocalist of the Atlanta rock quartet Manchester Orchestra, sang out the first line of their song ‘Pride’ to a sea of fans. It was a dramatic cold open. The song’s initial cadence leads into a heavy drum entrance, predictably setting a roaring crowd into overdrive. Hull, and his bandmates, Andy Prince (bass), Robert McDowell (guitar), and Tim Very (trap set), are rock stars, there’s no doubt about it. Their refreshing live instrumental virtuosity, especially Hull and Prince on dueling guitar and bass, sets the band apart from a genre whose regulars are skilled enough as it is. The group performed hits like ‘I Can Feel a Hot One’, ‘The Gold’, and ‘Shake it Out’ as well as newer tracks from their 2021 offering The Million Masks of God, ‘Bed Head’ and ‘Dinosaur.’ They finished with ‘The Silence’, a devastating song about romantic loss that earned the band an astonishing 155 million listens just on YouTube. During the last few lines of the song, Andy Hull sang to the crowd from a monitor at the edge of the stage, and then dragged his mic stand and guitar behind him as he walked off stage, further expressing the drama of the song.
Hull’s vivid, sometimes abstract lyrics are not necessarily the kind that you sing along to (although, yes there was definitely some of that going on). But a kind of sonic poetry is something the band has in common with the tour’s other headliner. Lyrics from both artists have impacted multiple generations of fans, young and old, over the course of four decades.
Jimmy Eat World, a band that, let’s be honest, needs no introduction, walked onto a dark, foggy stage and took their places. Jim Adkins, the group’s namesake, lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, plugged his guitar in and walked back to make eye contact with drummer Zach Lind before jumping into their opening number ‘Congratulations.’ The energetic song from their 2019 record Surviving was an album closer in the studio but an apt live opener. The audience was transported to a formative period for the band when next they played ‘Bleed American’ and ‘Sweetness.’ Running through a catalog of hits would be an easy choice for a prolific band like Jimmy Eat World, but curating a cohesive track list from their mountain of repertoire is what they accomplished. A pairing of ‘A Praise Chorus’ and their 2022 single ‘Place Your Debts’ near the end of their set was especially compelling. They ended with ‘The Middle’, a song that once captured the hearts of alternative fans around the world, and, by the sound of Monday’s screaming crowd, still has them.
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