Photos and words by Emily Cohen
It’s hard to believe, but it really has been 20 years since the release of the iconic album Say Anything … Is A Real Boy. To celebrate the occasion, Max Bemis, the band’s lead singer, brought the band back together (after being on hiatus since 2018) to go on tour to play the album for their loyal fans. With over 25 shows booked throughout the U.S, the Philadelphia show sold out the fastest. Most, if not all, of the shows on this tour are sold out at this point but there are some expensive resale tickets floating around. “We have always had the best turnouts in Philadelphia,” Max told the crowd. “You guys actually sold out this show in TWO DAYS” guitarist Fred Mascherino, formerly of Taking Back Sunday, chimed in to tell the crowd of over 2700 fans at The Fillmore. Fred himself took pride in that fact particularly since he himself is from the Philadelphia area and is a graduate of Temple University.
Right off the bat, the band went into the cult favorites setting the crowd wild. Inside the large North Philadelphia building, the Millennial crowd packed tightly shoulder to shoulder, though leaving room for a small pocket of fans to relive their younger days by opening up a small and respectful mosh circle. Some fans even surfed the crowd. Throughout the show Max gleefully allowed the crowd to sing some of the songs for him as the other four members of the touring band truly rocked on. In retrospect, Max may have let the crowd sing for more than other stops because as it turns out the band had to postpone their tour stop the next day due to Max having strep throat! Either way, the crowd at The Fillmore were in early aughts music heaven.
As tradition, Say Anything pleased the crowd with some planned encore songs. To spice up the set Max brought out his wife Sherri DuPree, a successful singer in her own right, and one of their young children named Ellis tagged along as Sherri went on stage, “She really wanted to come out on stage tonight,” Sherri said as she introduced their child to the packed crowd. Then acoustically, Max went into one of the band’s iconic love songs, “I Want To Know Your Plans” as a duet with Sherri as she held hands with their child swaying along to two clearly in love parents.
As always, the band closed out their “final” encore with the full ensemble belting out the band’s famous “ADMIT IT” track to the deafening voices of the crowd. It immediately brought me back to blasting the song many many times as an angsty youth; it was a truly joyful place to be transported to on a chilly May night.
As most of the crowd dutifully made their way out the exit as the house lights and music turned on, a passionate solid third of the crowd pushed towards the barricades chanting for one more song. And much to the surprise of everyone, Max actually came back out with his guitar. “Ok everyone, file back in,” he began, “You guys are really something, I’m going to play you a new song, I hope you enjoy it,” much to the delight of everyone still there.
Check out Say Anything here!
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