By Stefny
Twenty years ago, Ohio emo band Hawthorne Heights released their second studio album If Only You Were Lonely, their highly anticipated follow-up to their 2004 debut The Silence In Black and White.
This year, they’ve embarked on a world tour to celebrate the major anniversary of the record. I was lucky enough to chat with lead singer JT Woodruff in February before the tour kicked off, so of course I had to catch them while they were in town on Sunday, March 29.
In the streaming era where fans rarely listen to an album in order, I love experiencing the album as intended–especially live. Artists agonize over track listings to make sure everything flows and fits. As is the tradition with album anniversary performances, Hawthorne Heights played the record from beginning to end, which was a treat. Because the album is only 43 minutes long and doesn’t include their biggest hits (although it does have my favorite song, “Saying Sorry”), the band kept going after the album’s closing song “Decembers.”
They played a short video featuring JT and Casey Calvert, Hawthorne Heights’ original guitarist, who passed away in 2007. It was emotional–I recall hearing about it when I was a teenaged fan and it was the first time a musician I liked had passed away. Calvert was only 26 years old.
The band returned to the stage with the song “Bring You Back,” the opening track from 2010’s Skeletons. They also played “Niki FM” (which I only just learned during the show, is about Niki, the wife of the vocalist JT) and “Ohio Is For Lovers.” They graced fans with a brand new single, “Like A Cardinal.”
Throughout the show, JT talked about the state of the world and the state of our mental health, and truly leaned into the emo-ness of it all. The message I gleaned was: We’re all messed up, we all want an escape, and they want to provide that for us. If they healed us, they did their job. If they didn’t, then we’re all still in this together.
Most importantly, they proved that emo isn’t just a phase.