live: Motion City Soundtrack’s Reunion Tour Was Like Time-Traveling to the Most Formative Chapter of My Life
photos + words by: De Elizabeth
The year may be 2020, but while attending Motion City Soundtrack’s Don’t Call It a Comeback reunion tour, it felt a whole lot like 2007.
Immediately upon stepping into Boston’s House of Blues on January 6, it was as though I’d time-traveled to a different era, transforming into my younger self. I wasn’t in my 30s anymore, but a fresh college graduate, both excited and terrified of entering the world, unsure of my place, my future, and pretty much everything else, all the while clinging to music and lyrics that served as the backdrop to some of the most formative years of my life.
Seeing Motion City Soundtrack play a show in the year 2020 felt, at one point, like an impossibility. The band, formed in 1997 by Minneapolis-based musicians Justin Pierre and Joshua Cain, announced their breakup in 2016. By that point, the band, which grew to include keyboardist Jesse Johnson, bassist Matthew Taylor, and drummer Tony Thaxton, had released six studio albums, the first of which, titled I Am the Movie, debuted in 2003. With catchy, popular tracks like “Everything Is Alright” and “The Future Freaks Me Out,” MCS carved out a space for themselves within the alt-rock world, while establishing a core base of rabid superfans that would follow them throughout their musical journey.
Motion City Soundtrack’s music has allowed me to put words to emotions that I was otherwise unable to name. I fell in love with the band in 2004, after my brother put “The Future Freaks Me Out” and “Shiver” on a mix that we listened to every day that summer. I was captivated immediately by the energizing first seconds of “Future,” and soon enough, I’d memorized every word of their first album.
But it wasn’t until 2006 and 2007 that I became truly enamored with MCS, in part because I was battling an eating disorder that consumed a huge chunk of my life at that time. I routinely blasted “L.G. FUAD” and “Attractive Today” in my dorm room, drawn to the contradictory themes of self-destruction and romanticism, feeling like the band simply understood something that I didn’t quite understand myself. Later, after I’d officially been diagnosed with anorexia and sought recovery in late 2007, I listened to “Even If It Kills Me” on repeat, the words becoming my mantra: “For the first time in a long time I can say / That I want to try to get better and / Overcome each moment / In my own way.” It was around then when I saw MCS live for the first time, and while standing in the crowd at NYC’s Roseland Ballroom, surrounded by people also scream-singing the words that had clearly meant so much to them too, it was obvious to me that Motion City isn’t just a band: they’re a concrete fixture in so many people’s lives, a way to feel seen and a little less alone.
Sarah, who also caught MCS’s reunion tour at Boston’s House of Blues, told The Grey Estates that the band “made me feel like there were other people who felt as lost as I did.” The 36-year-old added: “I think those feelings never really leave you, even as you grow and mature and learn how to deal with life better. Music is the soundtrack of your life, and MCS was a formative influence in mine.” That also seems to be the case for Nick, who saw Motion City for the first time during their reunion tour stop in Detroit. “[MCS] provided me an anchor to go back to whenever I need a bit of sympathy,” the 25-year-old explained, noting that their music helped him push through a lot of emotional barriers as a teenager. “Many of the songs seem to come from such a personal area within the band, and it helps me realize that I am not the only one experiencing these emotions.”
For fans, including myself, getting to see MCS perform recently was like being given a second chance to do something you never thought you’d do again. Their Boston set list included old favorites, like “When You’re Around” to “My Favorite Accident,” and the band closed with encore performances of “L.G. FUAD” and “Future,” all of which had the entire crowd singing along to every word. But MCS’s reunion tour wasn’t just a fun experience, it was also a chance to return to our previous selves, the chapters in our lives that were ultimately defined by those six albums. “Each one has at least one song that transports me right back to that year,” Jenn, who also attended the Boston show, told TGE. “It felt like every new album came out during a critical moment in my life.” Sarah added that seeing MCS live made her feel like she was 20 all over again. “I liked music that made me feel, that tapped into the loneliness and awkwardness I felt at 19 or 20,” she said, noting that “Disappear” was an especially poignant anthem for her. “Sometimes I still need to scream [the lyrics], even as an adult woman.”
Ultimately, the Comeback tour gave fans the space to scream the words that filled their younger hearts, to connect with the music, but also themselves. And while standing there in the crowd, with the music pounding in my ears — “they say that what doesn’t kill us makes us who we are” — if I’d closed my eyes, I could have convinced myself it was a decade earlier, that no time had passed at all. Jenn felt similarly. “Certain songs...hit me harder than they did the first time I heard them,” she told TGE. “It was like nothing changed but also everything changed?! That’s the magic of MCS; they just are so good at what they do and what they say and how they say it…. Some bands just find you that way, and are along for the ride of your life.”
As for the rest of our lives, including the band members, it’s hard not to wonder what might come next. Could a reunion tour lead to another album? If you were to ask Justin, you might not get a straight answer. The singer likened MCS’s Comeback tour to an “experiment,” telling Alternative Press that there is no real plan beyond that — but that also doesn’t mean that there’s no hope. “I think by not touring for a few years, we’re all excited to do it again,” he said. “I think that when you do a thing for a certain amount of time, after a while…something gets lost. And I think whatever that is sort of recharged…I don’t know: There’s an excitement level in all of us that when we get together, anything will happen.”
Motion City Soundtrack’s Don’t Call It A Comeback Tour continues until February 17, with stops throughout major U.S. cities.