Photo and Article: Emily Collins

PUP and Jeff Rosenstock graced the stage of the Sylvee September 4th with their joint tour, A CATACLYSMIC RAPTURE OF FRIENDSHIPNESS!!! The two bands have released a song together this year, “Get Dumber”, and with words from the band, “the time has come for us to try touring together again, and this time it will be good and not bad.”

And boy, was it good. My friends and I arrived 30 minutes early to a sparse crowd, but it filled in when the opener, Ekko Astral from Washington D.C, began. They brought hard-hitting noise punk with a bit of glitter flare and feminine rage. The three piece was extremely powerful in their music as well as messaging, many of their songs following the punk tradition of throwing the bird to societal issues. “Capitol Riot” ended their set with, in my opinion, their best song. I couldn’t revisit it to describe it better because it is unreleased, but the emotional energy its harmonies filled the room with was amazing.

Jeff Rosenstock, whom I was most excited for, played second in the sandwich of bands (bandwich?). He typically plays extremely long sets, but because they were second, the set was under an hour. It didn’t feel that short, though, and I could have sworn it was way longer. By the time we hit “Nausea”, one of my favorites, I was hyped and full of energy. The rest of the crowd seemed to be too, and there was a consistent pit throughout the whole set.

Their foundation in punk rock with influences of indie, alternative, emo, and ska styles is what draws me to Jeff Rosenstock’s music. I love how unique and raw the sound is, and the live performance matched and sometimes beat his recorded media. I had a ball moshing to “Festival Song”, my personal favorite of his, and made it close to the barricade to view the remainder of the set. Other highlights included the slower ballad “9/10”, which had the crowd singing and swaying together about being high on the subway and thinking of everyone’s ‘you’. Second to last was “You, In Weird Cities” with a super extended ending that had me screaming all of the words.

After losing my voice already, it was time for PUP. This time, my friends rejoined me for spots on the barricade between the lead singer and guitarist, Stefan Babcock, and guitarist Steve Sladkowski. The set began with insane energy from the band and the audience, with someone crowd surfing every minute or two. I only got knocked down by someone’s full bodyweight once! I was less familiar with PUP’s discography but had an amazing time nonetheless. “DVP” was my favorite of theirs, with its hard hitting opening and catchy chorus. 

By far the best moment in the show was the double band, where Jeff Rosenstock joined PUP for six final songs. “Hey Allison!” was exceptional with nine musicians, and they of course played “Get Dumber”, a song PUP released in May of this year, featuring Jeff Rosenstock. Because of the sheer amount of musicians on stage, they got to be really creative with their instrumentation during the songs. Saxophones, multiple keyboards, three guitarists, you name it. Jeff and Stefan’s chemistry while singing together was incredible to watch as well, and Stefan took a chance to briefly dive into the crowd. The mega-band sent us off with a cover of Alanis Morisette’s “You Oughta Know”, which was super fun to end the night on. This show was definitely one of the greatest concerts I have seen all year, and I recommend giving both bands a listen.