I Woke Up in New York City…
Having played Brooklyn Steel the night before for the official start of their tour, Something Corporate took the stage in Manhattan with joyful ease
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Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone -
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone Even as pop-punk nostalgia is at an all-time high, Something Corporate keep it real. “What we’re doing right now is not something you can manufacture,” Ireland says. “What we have is the history, the love across each other, the songs that have been a part of our life obviously, but the fans’ lives as well … We have now had the good fortune to be able to revisit in a way that’s really powerful.”
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The Nerves Kick In
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone Despite getting the tour opener out of the way, lead singer Andrew McMahon can’t shake the anxious feelings before a show. “I’m just a mess until I’m on stage. It’s just all the nerves,” he says in the green room. “I get more nerves now than I ever have.”
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It’s All Love
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone Ahead of this tour, McMahon recalls thinking, “Holy shit, people are still here. We love each other more now in a way than ever before because it’s just really pure. We built something and we now just get to enjoy it.”
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Showing Support
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone McMahon and Partington backstage during tour opener Days Away, which McMahon describes as one of his favorite bands from the era SoCo came up in.
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Give Me Space So I Can Breathe
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone What started as a joke between Page and Ireland turned into a can’t-miss pre show ritual in which they synchronize their breathing just before taking the stage. “It became this moment for us to truly just breathe together and literally put our heads together, grab each other by the hand and say, OK, let’s get in there and sync up and do this,” Ireland says. “To date, I think we’ve only missed one show,” Page adds.
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The Five Amigos
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone “We’ve always done a version of a band prayer before a show,” McMahon says. “There’s more people backstage than ever, so there this moment where it’s like, ‘Let’s just get just us in a quiet space and remember that the five of us have to do this together.’”
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Waves Are Waves
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone McMahon dances after the debut of Something Corporate’s new song “Death Grip.” The track aptly reflected the carefree exuberance of the show.
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Konstantine
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone The night before, as McMahon sang fan favorite “Konstantine,” he was adorned with a massive necklace from fans, which displayed every word from the seven-minute song beaded together. “They’ve come to shows since we were kids and have kept coming,” he says of the devoted fans. As for the jewelry he was rocking: “It’s heavy. It’s like some serious bling.” Tell jokingly says he looked like “Emo Mr. T.”
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Hammers and Strings by Clutch
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone Page and McMahon, with the piano that Page’s company Procraft made specifically for the tour. “Procraft made a really beautiful piano,” McMahon says. It features an LED screen encasing the old piano used for their second album, North. “[McMahon] said he always dreamed of making a piano that’s a fish tank and I said, well, we can do that,” Page says.
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Babies of the 80s
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone McMahon and Ireland took it back to high school by including the deep cut “Babies of the 80’s” from their early release Ready… Break in the setlist. “That’s super fun for us to pull one out,” Ireland says. “For us, that brings back memories of math class. We were playing this for the first time at our high school. It was the first time we ever played.”
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Happy to Be Back
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone “It’s going to be really cool to be backstage in a room, or in a city together when it’s just the five of us, because that hasn’t happened,” Tell says. “We’ve been recording together, we’ve practiced together, we’ve been onstage.That’s the one little bit that’s left.”
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In Power for the Hour
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone “It’s awesome seeing those relationships and to know that what we do helped foster friendships,” Partington says of watching fans come together at their shows. “I have such respect for all of the people that come to these shows and that support us.”
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Family Time
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone Backstage is a bit of a full house now in ways that it wasn’t before with everyone’s families and kids. But it’s a welcome change — all the members love watching the kids sing along to their favorite tracks. Cecilia, McMahon’s daughter, says her favorite songs are “Punk Rock Princess” and “Woke Up in a Car.”
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The Crowd Goes Wild
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone “I kept taking out my in-ears because the sound came from the crowd. It was surprising. It was just so much energy and amazing,” Tell says.
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From the Garage
Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone “We used to be in a garage, we used to play in Andrew’s garage,” Partington says. “And we also used to walk up on a stage where there weren’t that many more people than the five of us there. So it’s a nice little reminder — this all came from somewhere where the five of us were hanging out.”