Win Tickets ($80): Mayday Parade, Real Friends, & Magnolia Park @ Crystal Ballroom | Rock, Pop Punk
We are giving away a pair of tickets to Mayday Parade, Real Friends, & Magnolia Park @ Crystal Ballroom on February 25. To win, comment below on this post why you’d like to attend. Winner will be drawn and emailed February 21.
———————————————
From our sponsors:
Mayday Parade
Real Friends
Magnolia Park
February 25, 2022
6PM Doors, 7:30PM Show | All Ages
$35 ADV, $40 Doors
$37.50 ADV 21+ Balcony, $42 Doors 21+ Balcony
More info: crystalballroompdx.com
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St, Portland, OR 97209
The sixth studio album from Tallahassee-based rock band Mayday Parade Sunnyland gets its title from an abandoned hospital where the band members used to sneak in to explore as teenagers. “The hospital shut down sometime in the mid-’80s but then it just stayed there for decades,” says lead vocalist Derek Sanders. “It was a super-creepy place — it was overgrown with vines, and still had some of the hospital beds and IV stands — but we have all these good memories of hanging out there when we were younger.”
The follow-up to their acclaimed 2015 album Black Lines, Sunnyland finds Mayday Parade both reflecting on the past and pushing toward the future. The band recorded the album with longtime producers Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount, and also teamed up with Grammy nominated producer John Feldmann (Blink-182, Panic! At the Disco) and Howard Benson (Of Mice & Men, My Chemical Romance) for the very first time. The result is an album built on impassioned vocals, sing-along choruses and deeply heartfelt lyrics.
From the album-opening “Never Sure” — a tortured love song driven by blistering riffs and pummeling drumbeats — Mayday Parade instill all of Sunnyland with unbridled energy. Whether they’re taking on a folk-infused ballad like “Always Leaving” or channeling brutal punk fury into tracks like “If I Were You,” the band sustains an undeniable intensity. While much of the album explores personal matters like loss and love (as on the stirringly romantic, piano-laced “Piece Of Your Heart”), songs such as “It’s Hard to Be Religious When Certain People Are Never Incinerated By Bolts Of Lightning” emerge as an outward-looking burst of anger. “That song was written within months of Donald Trump being elected and came from feeling upset that something as horrible as that could happen,” says Sanders. “But even though there’s a lot of negativity on the song, there’s still a hopeful chorus because I think we need to try to stay hopeful.” And to close out Sunnyland, Mayday Parade deliver the album’s stripped-back title track, a melancholy mid-tempo number that unfolds with graceful acoustic guitar work, delicate harmonies and subtly detailed storytelling.
Since making their debut with 2007’s A Lesson in Romantics, the band has sold over 1.1 million albums, steadily amassing a worldwide following. Through the years, their chemistry has only gotten more potent, with all five members now contributing to the songwriting process (and coming up with upwards of 80 songs in the writing sessions for Sunnyland). “When we started this band most of us were still teenagers,” notes Sanders. “We’ve obviously grown up and changed a whole lot since then, but through all that we’ve grown closer as friends and tighter as musicians. It’s amazing and incredible that we’re able to still do this, and we all definitely realize how lucky we are.”
Having gotten their start selling their CDs in the parking lot of Vans Warped Tour, Mayday Parade have now headlined the tour five times, and will play the main stage again this summer for the tour’s final run. For the band, each live show offers the chance to personally connect with the dedicated following they consider more like a family than a fanbase. And with the release of Sunnyland, Mayday Parade’s mission is to continue strengthening that connection through their uncompromising honesty and boundless emotion. “There’s a lot of sadness in these songs, but it’s always a good thing to get those feelings out,” says Sanders of Sunnyland. “So if there are people out there dealing with hard times, we hope our music can help them work through that, and come away feeling a little better about everything.”
Categories
Tags
37 Comments
Leave a Comment
Keep in Touch!
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter to receive updates
This concert would be AMAZING to go to with my partner! We both were teens when MayDay Parade got big and immediately became fans. This concert would be so cool and would truly be a great Nostalgia-fueled memory. We also haven’t been able to go to a concert because of being sick, we unfortunately missed out on Summer Salt because my influenza didn’t go down soon enough and really would appreciate another chance to go out and get away from the hum-drumming work life. We work opposite schedules and never see each other anymore so this would give us a chance to come together and truly enjoy the experience together!
Please consider giving us another chance we really would be so grateful to go to this show!!
I would really enjoy taking my girl to a show. It’s been forever since the pandemic has kept us away from the things we love.
I’d be mother of the year if I won and gave tickets to my kiddo! They are doing so well! Happy, healthy, thriving. Music heals.
Would love to go to this for my February birthday please.
THIS WOULD BE AMAZING! I would love to take my bestfriend to this concert – we both love this band, and could use some nostalgia right now
Spent many years listening to Mayday Parade, but never got a chance to see them live. Still throw them on the playlist rotation today, would be such a great concert to see!
Oh my eternally emo heart would LOVE to go see this show!!
would be an absolute teen dream come true!
My birthday is Feb.11 and I’d love to go to this to celebrate as a late gift to myself.
I want to win because it will be the best thing ever!
Let’s feel funky, friends!!
let me live out my pop punk dreams
I’d love to win and throw it back to my high school days at this show!
SOS! I’d enjoy Mayday!
Who doesnt love a good parade and bands with the name parade in them.
Pick me pdx tix!
Would love to see them. Thanks
I will be celebrating the whole month of February because that’s my birthday month so I’d love to go to this concert. Pick me. Thanks.
Well fuck it’s been like 20 years since my last real good punk show so yeah to win tickets to the show would be cool then I started reading comments and some red flags(emo heart, teen throb) have my punk rock soul in sorrow please do not respond if this gets you feeling all angsty and pissed off….home is where the mosh pit is!!!
I’ll take 2 tix, why not?!
I’d love
To win these tix for my
Daughter. It’s been a rough 2020/2021. She lost her Disney on ice job, had to move back to Portland to be home and had to get vax’d. The girl deserves something fun!
Want to celebrate my February birthday please.
Oh what a show this shall be! I’d be there or be square!
Would love to go to this show!
My birthday is Feb. 11 and I’m starting in on my 70s so I will probably be depressed by the end of the month when it really sinks in so need somewhere to go to enjoy some music. Please pick me. Thanks.
Magnolia is a terrible wood for flooring. Maybe that’s why the floors are like that.
I would love to take my adult child to this!
Would love to go to this!
I have listened to Mayday Parade since I was 15 (I’m 28 now) and I have always loved them! I feel like I’m the same angsty pop-punk kid I was whenever I listen to them.
My birthday is on February so would like to check this out.
Would love a chance to see Magnolia Park live!
Need a place to go and celebrate my birthday month. I’m getting older but wiser and still love music.
Want to take my wife out for a nice date night.
The sounds like a nice event that I could treat my friends too and just the experience would be much appreciated.
Birthday Party YES PLEASE
Time to relive my teen years, baby!
I want to win because I love this type of music, and this sounds like a fantastic lineup. I’ve been itching to go to another concert lol