Hawthorne Heights, letlive. & Creeper bring their 2026 tour to XL LIVE

Two decades after If Only You Were Lonely put heartbreak on the map for an entire generation, Hawthorne Heights rolled into XL LIVE in Harrisburg on October 28, 2026, to remind everyone why the album became a staple of the mid-2000s emo scene. The band played the record in full, but not before supporting acts Creeper and letlive. delivered theatrical, emotional, and chaotic sets that had the room primed for a night built entirely on celebration and nostalgia.

Creeper opened things with a theatrical flair that felt ripped straight out of a gothic vampire opera. Even without any prior familiarity with their music, their performance was impossible to ignore. Dramatic lighting, dark aesthetics, and vocalist Will Gould’s commanding presence pulled the room in immediately.

The UK outfit brought a polished, haunting energy that translated incredibly well live — sharp vocals layered over a moody, cinematic atmosphere that set a perfect tone for the night, blending emo, punk, and gothic storytelling into something that felt genuinely special.

Nothing could have prepared the room for what happened when letlive. took the stage. From the second they walked out until their set ended, the energy was pure, unhinged chaos — in the best possible way. Vocalist Jason Aalon Butler was an absolute force of nature: hurling a trash can around, picking up speakers, running across the stage with them, stacking them, and climbing on top like it was nothing. Watching him sustain that level of relentless intensity while still sounding completely locked in the entire time was wild.

For the finale, Butler made his way to the far end of the venue, climbed to the upper level, and finished the song from the balcony — before hanging off the edge and being held up by the crowd below. This was nowhere close to a typical live set. It was a controlled explosion that demanded your full attention from start to finish.

By the time Hawthorne Heights took the stage, XL LIVE was already buzzing with nostalgia. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of If Only You Were Lonely, the band played the album front to back, giving longtime fans the chance to relive every lyric, breakdown, and scream that defined mid-2000s emo. The crowd was fully locked in the entire way through, singing along like no time had passed at all.

The band also played their new song, “Like a Cardinal,” released on March 20 — it fit seamlessly alongside the older material and felt like a genuine evolution of their sound rather than a detour.

And of course, the night wouldn’t have been complete without “Niki FM,” which sent the energy into another gear entirely. Hawthorne Heights closed things out in the most fitting way possible with “Ohio Is for Lovers,” turning XL LIVE into a sea of crowd surfers as vocalist JT Woodruff made his way to the barricade to sing the entire song face-to-face with the front row. It was the kind of moment that captured exactly what an anniversary show should be: connection, catharsis, and the proof that songs can still mean everything to the people screaming them twenty years later.