The 25 Years of Noise Tour stopped in Silverstein’s hometown of Toronto on Friday. Happy Valentine’s Day indeed! The sold-out crowd was ready to reminisce and scream along with the band as they gave us an in-depth history lesson. Silverstein brought a big lineup with them: Split Chain, an alternative band from the UK; Arm’s Length, an emo band from Ontario; and Thursday, a post-hardcore band from New Jersey. The evening was stacked with a great mix of new and old rock and punk influences, exactly what one might want from a 25th-anniversary tour.
Split Chain got the evening started with their grungy alternative set. The band is comprised of: Roberto Martinez-Cowles on vocals, Tom Davies on Bass, Oli Bowles and Jake Reid on guitars, and Aaron Black on Drums and hails from the UK. Their first time playing on this side of the pond, and tonight their first ever Canadian date, the band did a great job of getting the crowd interested and warmed up with their heavy mix of late 90’s and early 00’s influence tracks. Their short set set the mood for the evening to come.
The second band of the evening was Arm’s Length, a local quintet from our very own province. They got the crowd surfing started surprisingly early! This group really had a great time on stage, and their energy translated to the crowd with fervour. Highly influenced by the pop-punk/emo genre, their music was high energy, and melodic. Arm’s Length is: Allen Steinberg (vocals/guitar), Jeremy Whyte on guitar, his brother Jeff on drums, Benjamin Greenblatt (bass), and Marty Hacker-Mullen (guitar).
Rounding out the openers for this tour was Thursday, Melodic/Post-Hardcore royalty from New Jersey. Thursday has been bringing their music to crowds off and on again for nearly 30 years. Made up of 5 members (*inclu. touring members): Geoff Rickly (vocals), Jeff Gensterblum (drums), Wade MacNeil (of Alexisonfire on Guitar), Stuart Richardson (bass), and Steve Pedulla (guitar). Geoff tore through a solid 45-minute setlist, singing/screaming and discussing politics, drug addiction and broken legs, among other things. The crowd was with him for every minute.
Time for the “Main Event”, Silverstein hit the stage at 9:30, for a blistering hour and 30-minute set spanning their entire career, and as Shane joked midway through – the setlist was in backwards chronological order from newest to oldest, and they made sure to hit on all their albums. Local boys, from just outside Toronto (Burlington), ON, Silverstein is a Post-Hardcore/Emo band made up of 5 members: Shane Told (vocals), Bill Hamilton (Bass), Josh Bradford (guitar), Paul Koehler (drums), and Paul Marc Rousseau (lead guitar). A ‘hometown’ is always a bit of a different beast, for those that don’t know. Family, friends, and sold-out venues tend to lend to a band really turning up, and Silverstein never disappoints. They always put on a great show.
The huge video boards at the back of the stage showed multiple stitched-together home videos spanning from the earliest years playing in basements and first shows to more recent tour video clips and shots from Warped Tours and Festivals with thousands of fans singing along. The 21-song setlist started with a couple of their most recent releases (Skin and Bones and Confession – which will feature on their 2025 release I hope); moving backwards through their albums playing a couple of songs from each as they went. We had the pleasure of working our way backwards with them to their roots concluding with 4 songs from Discovering the Waterfront (2005), and finally a couple from When Broken is Easily Fixed (2003).
Overall, this was a wonderful night celebrating the genre, and the being an “elder emo”. Happy Valentine’s Day indeed!
See photos from the show below!
