Mayday Parade’s 2025 Tour, ‘Three Cheers for 20 Years’ is exactly what it sounds like, a celebration of the band’s 20th birthday. From Tallahassee, Florida, the band takes the birthday party nationally, visiting 25 cities. Rounding up the last week of the tour with Raleigh, NC, I had the pleasure of experiencing the magic of the original Warped Tour live.

On the younger side of the ‘elder emo’ species, I was unfortunately not old enough to experience the original Warped Tour scene, while early 2000s bands were in their prime, such as Mayday Parade and others in that time frame including Rise Against, Silverstein, and Asking Alexandria. Drawing me to this tour was Microwave, of their openers, and also one of my favorite bands. Reviewing Mayday Parade last week was truly a treat, as a new age punk fan taking a peak at the early Warped tour days. 

To open the show, the lights drop and clips play from the TV walls that surround the set design. What shows is a clip grab from a historical tour; from what I believe is the 2008 festival, singer Derek Sanders shares the story of how the band catalyzed and gained momentum to get to where they were at that moment. He then describes the style of fans they tend to attract, such as ‘teenage girls,’ which was followed by a few screams in the crowd. By the way they speak about their fans in the clip, as if they are friends or even people they see higher than themselves, it makes sense that the members want to do nothing but spend their 20th birthday with their fans.

It makes me wonder how many of those in the crowd were there from the start, or even saw them on that day that the clip was taken.

The scene haircuts from the original clip may be gone, but I may say, they still sound the same from their original tracks. Starting off with ‘By The Way,’ Sanders begins with a slow ballad behind the piano, but picks up the pace and sings the rest of the song. From the photo pit, the fans at this point were debatably louder than the band themselves; I love seeing die-hard fanbases, and it was incredible to see from an outside perspective.

From reading my articles, you know at this point that I always regard the creative direction to bands’ stage performance. I had no expectations from this tour, but I was blown away at the care they took into visual interest. There were multiple layers of depth and height, including platforms for the drums and the piano, as well as risers at the front for guitarists. Surrounding them included intimidators with interesting color combinations, TV walls with both designs and subject work, and bowl lights that hugged them from each side. There was always something to look at, and as someone who didn’t know the music, I still had an incredible time just simply taking everything in.

One of my favorite things about punk shows is the museum of different band shirts that can be seen in the crowd. Although the crowd was overflowing with Mayday Parade shirts from all eras of the band. Other shirts I saw included Free Throw, Silverstein, Blink 182, Breaking Benjamin, and my favorite obviously, Microwave.

Mayday Parade acquired a varying collection of opening acts for this tour, with bands for all subtypes of pop punk fans. 

First of the night is Like Roses. Going into the show, I hadn’t heard anything about this Bay Area band before, except from the other photographers in the pit with me. With a sound that is heavily inspired by elder hardcore, this band was packed with energy. My favorite part of this band had to be 3 out of the 4 members with incredible hair, with multiple opportunities for head-banging and hair whipping. The more I perceived them, the more fun tidbits I found about them; including their shoe-less guitar player (with, might I add, awesome socks). Unfortunately, because of the split due to the staging of band instruments following them, it was hard to see the potential of the band’s full chemistry together. That being said, they have an extremely keen understanding of their sound, and they’ve gained a new fan in me. 

As, and added bonus; I am someone who is constantly advocating for equal opportunity for women in punk scenes. I was pleasantly surprised to see a female fronted band on the lineup. Times have changed for the better since the original 2000’s punk scene, and it is becoming way more common to see women included in iconic punk tours like these. 

Next on the lineup was Grayscale; also unfamiliar with their music beforehand, they have a style I’d like to call ‘The Band Camino’s edgy little brother.’ Based on word of mouth from my music industry peers, I had extremely high expectations of this band. With varying energy and quite a few interactive elements, I fairly enjoyed their performance. However, I don’t think their style of music matched the rest of the lineup, which I feel was the reason why they didn’t get much traction from the crowd as opposed to the others.

However, the lead singer of Grayscale did accompany Mayday to sing Three Cheers for Five Years, which was a cool surprise.

P.S: Check out GGP’s coverage of Grayscale here!

The last of the openers, and one of my personal favorite bands, includes Microwave. As this is now my fourth time seeing them live, their performances are always a treat to those who are completely unaware of their sound, or die hard fans like myself. With a mixture of upbeat and interesting sound as well as mellow and strange songs (I’m talking about you, Whimper), Microwave truly knows how to get the party started. As fans were patiently awaiting Mayday, the energy really started to pick up for Microwave.

As the tour is completely over as of now, there is no sign Mayday Parade is stopping their momentum. Catch Mayday at Warped Tour in DC and Florida, Summerfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, When We Were Young Fest in Las Vegas, and select shows in Australia coming this fall. 

Happy Birthday Mayday Parade, and GGP hopes that the next 20 years are just as explosive as the first!

SETLIST

1. By The Way
2. Just Say You’re Not Into It
3. Three Cheers for Five Years
4. Jersey
5. I’d Hate to Be You When People Find Out What This Song Is About
6. Miserable at Best
7. Anywhere But Here
8. Bruised and Scarred
9. Terrible Things
10. Oh Well, Oh Well
11. Stay
12. Ghosts
13. One of Them Will Destroy the Other
14. Sunnyland
15. Never Sure
16. Piece of Your Heart
17. Heaven
18. One for the Rocks and One for the Scary
19. More Like a Crash
20. Pretty Good to Feel Something
21. Who’s Laughing Now
22. One Man Drinking Games
23. Jamie All Over