Philadelphia’s Stateside Live! swung open the doors to its newly renovated outdoor space in style on May 29, kicking off a grand opening weekend with one of the strongest pop punk lineups the Philadelphia has ever seen. The $20 million expansion – led by Comcast Spectacor and the Cordish Companies – added over 48,000 square feet of outdoor space to the formerly named Xfinity Live!, including the new Coors Light Concert Stage, an AVA rooftop bar, Blue Moon beer garden, Stateside Crush cocktail bar, and PBR Backyard. The space can now hold up to 5,000 fans outdoors, with a combined indoor/outdoor capacity of 9,000. It was a fitting backdrop for a free outdoor show that brought out Bayside, Mayday Parade, and Taking Back Sunday to christen the new stage
What Taking Back Sunday delivered at Stateside Live! wasn’t a victory lap – it was a statement. This is a band operating at full capacity, not coasting on the goodwill of a devoted fanbase but actively earning it. John Nolan and Fred Mascherino sharing a Philadelphia stage together for the first time gave the night a historic weight, and the setlist matched the occasion. Newer tracks like “Tidal Wave” and “S’Old” slotted in alongside “What’s It Feel Like to Be a Ghost?,” “Liar (It Takes One to Know One),” “You’re So Last Summer,” “Error: Operator,” and “Flicker, Fade” without missing a beat, and the explosive closer “MakeDamnSure” left the crowd wrung out in the best possible way. At one point it felt less like a concert and more like a collective time warp – thousands of people mouthing every word, transported somewhere between their late teens and early twenties.
The chemistry onstage is impossible to fake, and TBS has it in abundance. Fred’s return doesn’t just restore a piece of band history – it adds a new dimension to a live show that was already firing on all cylinders. Every member commands the stage in their own way, but Adam Lazzara is a force of nature in the truest sense: mic swinging, crowd work that somehow turns a packed outdoor venue into something that feels genuinely personal, and a performer’s instinct that never lets a moment go to waste. For a band this deep into their career with this many miles on them, the energy is almost unreasonable. There’s nothing perfunctory about it. Next up for TBS is the festival circuit, and if Warped Tour DC has any sense, they’ll be slotting them for the main stage.
Taking Back Sunday Tour
