Jimmy Eat World and Manchester Orchestra didn’t just agree to support each other on their co-headlining The Amplified Echoes Tour. Each band chose a song from the others’ catalog to cover and release on singles. Jimmy Eat World, Emo’s breakthrough band, covered “Telepath” from Manchester Orchestra’s soaring, sprawling 2021 album The Million Masks of God, while the latter recorded “Table for Glasses” from Jimmy Eat World’s 1999 album Clarity.
Appreciation for that album slowly grew after “The Middle” from 2001’s Bleed American made Jimmy Eat World pop-punk superstars, and the danger of being one-hit wonders was alleviated by follow-up hit “Sweetness.” Both songs became alternative rock radio staples, with the house-party video for “The Middle” going into heavy rotation on MTV and “Sweetness” influencing lyrical hooks for years to come with its catchy “Whoa oh-oh-oh-oh” line.
For a act from Mesa, Ariz., that been signed and dropped by a major label before recording Bleed American on their own, “The Middle” was a hopeful pop-punk paean that resonated with teenagers coping with post-traumatic stress experienced in the wake of 9/11. It was likely played at every house party attended by future Manchester Orchestra members Andy Hull and Robert McDowell as well.
Manchester Orchestra Photo by: Courtesy
The two guitarists teamed up in Atlanta with the band’s first lineup, which released a debut album in 2006. Manchester Orchestra’s 2013 album Cope, featuring current bassist Andy Prince and drummer Tim Very, moved the band’s sound in a heavy direction before Hull and McDowell became involved with the soundtrack for 2016 film Swiss Army Man. “Cinematic” became an oft-used adjective to describe subsequent albums A Black Mile to the Surface and The Million Masks of God.
The Valley of Vision, a six-song continuation of the avant-garde, explorative, imagistic, progressive Southern gothic path they’ve been trekking along, was re-leased in March. Adjectives can’t properly evoke the Manchester Orchestra aural experience that fits comfortably in playlists alongside My Morning Jacket, The Smiths, mid-period Pink Floyd and King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King. “The Silence” from Black Mile is a particular favorite of Hull’s and is the song that broke the band into the mainstream thanks to a 10-minute black-and-white video that went viral and currently has more than 152 million views.
Songs really became suites, or “cool monsters” according to Hull, on that album. Meanwhile “The Middle” marched toward becoming a classic, becoming revived on film soundtracks and a 2016 commercial for Apple Music in which Taylor Swift dances around to the song and sings into her lip gloss brush as she’s getting ready to go out.
Jimmy Eat World reinforced fan devotion with 2004 album Futures and 2007’s Chase This Light, which contained setlist stalwarts such as “Pain” and “Big Casino,” respectively. The resurgence of interest in the emo era via themed club nights and the When We Were Young festival has inspired the band, which consists of the same lineup that recorded Clarity. Frontman Jim Adkins is in good voice as the quartet observes its 30th anniversary by continuing to deliver post-emo rock with incandescent enthusiasm.
The Cosmopolitan, 8 p.m. July 22, starting at $27.06 plus tax and fee. ticketmaster.com
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