Burl’s Creek almost escaped festival season without a weather delay. The end was mere hours away when lightning in the area cut short the main stage set for the Plain White T’s at All Your Friends Fest Saturday.
Thankfully, the storm cleared in time for the final three acts of the festival: Fall Out Boy, Dashboard Confessional and Jimmy Eat World.
It’s a good thing too, as Jimmy Eat World were ready to have some fun. After all, that’s one of the things that’s kept the Arizona four-piece together for more than 30 years.
“I think it’s just the focus on protecting the part of it that’s supposed to be fun,” said Jim Adkins, lead singer and guitarist for the group, on the band’s longevity. “I think people forget it’s supposed to be fun. And if it’s not, you need to make adjustments so it’s fun.”
That fun can come in different ways, either by joking around with each other before the set or by showing “moral support” for the artists they’ve inspired, as shown through their late-set cover of Taylor Swift’s We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.
There’s been one personnel change for the group in its 31-year history and that was in 1995. Since then, the power pop combo has sold millions of records and crisscrossed the globe, leaving a devoted trail of fans in their wake who continue to pack any room the band plays.
It was evident the four of them — including Tom Linton on guitar and vocals, Rich Burch on bass and Zach Lind on drums — all still like each other after more than three decades, which can be just as challenging as trying to keep a band functioning over a span even half as long.
It’s another kind of challenge that they thrive on as a band: creating new music, even after they’ve penned anthems such as The Middle, Sweetness or Lucky Denver Mint.
“The mode that we’ve always been in is writing music and writing new music, so I think if we didn’t do that, something would kind of die in the band,” said Lind.
“For us, we want to continually think about making the music. And, obviously, being a band for over 30 years, nostalgia is going to be a part of it, because we do have old songs that people have connected with all this time, but the thing that makes it fun for us, and challenges us, is to write new music.”
Not that they would ever be so bold as to declare something is destined to be a generational defining hit. And with the band’s biggest hit, it was completely unexpected.
“When we’re making material, it’s often the ones we struggle with the most and take a lot of time that we have the most personal value invested, so they feel like the most special,” Burch added. “The Middle is a good example. It came together really quick. It wasn’t a laborious process. It happened. We were really happy. And then we moved onto the next one. It didn’t strike us as something that was going to resonate so strongly.”
Many of the songs on Fefe Dobson’s latest record, Emotion Sickness, came about the same way. She would have an experience, write about it quickly, and record it just as fast, beginning with Hangover, which was the lead single.
The title is not a metaphor.
“I was hungover,” she said. “I went to the Royal York and that’s where I was going to make my album. I basically got ... I went out with my friends in Toronto, let’s just say that. And I was so hungover, and I literally went in the studio and said, ‘I need to write a song about how I feel right now.’”
Dobson first burst onto the scene in the summer of 2003, with her song Bye Bye Boyfriend being inescapable on modern rock stations in Canada, particularly Toronto’s 102.1 The Edge. By the end of the summer, she found herself on the bill at the “Last Bash in Barrie,” a final Edge Fest at the infamous Molson Park.
Barely 18 years old, Dobson admits her memory is fuzzy, but has a fondness for that show, her first festival performance in Canada.
“I was very proud, I remember that. I always heard about Edge Fest. A lot of my favourite performers played it. It was an honour,” she said. “I don’t remember a lot of things. I remember I felt great. I had a great time. I was jumping around in my Converse and my tank top, and I was stoked.”
Her debut record was a success internationally, and through the album cycle she found herself a regular on MTV’s Total Request Live and even landed an opening slot on a Justin Timberlake tour. But a follow-up record was shelved, and Dobson didn’t put out another full length for nearly eight years.
It was an even longer gap until Emotion Sickness was released in 2023. But her absence wasn’t fueled by writer’s block or other record label shenanigans. Instead, she found herself relocated to Nashville, writing for other artists and releasing occasional singles.
She knew she was posed to return to her own art. It was only a matter of time.
“I was doing my thing, but I wasn’t ready for the whole album push yet,” Dobson said. “When you put out music you have to prepare for being on the road, leaving family, which sometimes can be tough. But it comes with a lot of other things: Yeah, I’m putting out an album, but I want to tour the album, you have to do press. I just wanted to be mentally focused before going into that world.”
Once she found that focus, she knew exactly the kind of album she wanted to put together.
“I wanted to make a rock record and go balls to the wall with it,” Dobson said. “That’s why I came out swinging with Hungover. We just wanted something that was to my roots and just go for it. I’ve got a lot of pent-up energy too. I mean, right after COVID and everything, we’ve been locked up for how many years, really? I just needed to release stuff.”
Her fans were ready, too. Dobson’s mid-afternoon set at the tent stage was a highlight, with a couple of thousand festival goers singing along to every word. In a genre designed around shorter, faster songs, she left the crowd wanting more in a way few other acts could over the weekend.
If there was a downside to either Jimmy Eat World or Dobson’s sets — and in general, across the performances over the weekend — is that more people didn’t see them. Fewer fans showed up Saturday for the festival close than had been there the previous night.
But that’s the thing about friends: it’s not about how many friends you have, but how much fun you have with all your friends.
