A rainy and dark November evening finds me at a sold out Vogue Theatre surrounded by people I’m sure I’ve moshed with back in the day, and some that probably weren’t even born yet. Inside these walls it’s sunny and time ceases to exist—we might as well be back in 2005. 

Opening with “Signals Over The Air,” Thursday came out swinging and the crowd swung back, belting every word right back at frontman Geoff Rickly. “Tucker” chants for Tucker Rule rang out from girls in the front row trying to get the drummer’s attention, while others screamed at the sight of Wade MacNeil, guitarist of Alexisonfire, who joined the lineup for this tour because, according to Rickly, “Silverstein is an iconic Canadian band, so we needed to bring our own iconic Canadian!” 

“All of you in this crowd are better than Americans – you wanna know why? America has four fathers and tonight you have five fathers… we are Thursday!” Rickly exclaimed onstage to the crowd through his gap toothed grin.

Nearing the end of the set, Rickly took a second to thank his band mates for saving his life from a heroin addiction—adding that he’s now eight years sober. There’s a moment of celebration and cheer from the crowd before Geoff takes a breath and jumps right into “War All The Time.”

It was at this moment that I started to cry. What a release a concert can be—but there’s something extra special about a Thursday concert. After all of these years, they are better than ever and it’s clear that they work hard for it.

By the time that Silverstein came out I was already an emotional mess. They started off their set by playing a video about the start of their band and their friendship, showing clips of them in their basements, during Warped Tour, all the way until now. This whole concert was testing me—how much nostalgia and music can I, an elder emo, handle?

Shane Told’s voice sounded better than ever as the band worked their way through new and old songs, his scream penetrating our ears like a welcomed kick to the head. Midway through the set they were joined by Lights (another Canadian icon to add to the list) to sing “The End.” And just when we thought it couldn’t get any more emo, they added the chorus of My Chemical Romance’s “Helena” to the end of “World’s Apart,” which made for an insanely cool outro.

It’s safe to say I might never fully recover from this show, and that’s fine by me.