Emo Orchestra @ The Louisvile Palace - Louisville
October 24th, 2023: Emo Orchestra @ The Louisville Palace - Louisville, KY
Emo Orchestra - Photos Courtesy of Emily May
For the Inaugural Emo Orchestra, special guests Hawthorne Heights brought this experience to Louisville recently to a modest but passionate crowd! It’s such a unique experience for those of us who grew up loving emo bands and songs to hear some of our favorites with the backing of a live orchestra in a gorgeous theater setting. Many of the fans had their kids with them, introducing them to much of the emo music they loved growing up. Singer JT Woodruff was all smiles as the performance started, chatting with the crowd before every song to give them the story of what he and his bandmates were going through at the time or their relationship with the band they were covering. Nostalgia can be such a wonderful feeling, with this evening leading many in attendance to re-live their younger days through the music performed. Woodruff said early on that he wanted to try to remind everyone of a time when life was simpler and when we all sat in our rooms and listened to music. He also joked about how performing in a nice, seated, air-conditioned venue was their way of apologizing to their fans for the days when they would have to see Hawthorne Heights in hundred-degree weather at Warped Tour!
Woodruff stated at the start of the set how excited the band was for this evening. He told the crowd how for years the band performed and would stand back at the merch table, listening to their fans tell him about how much their music or other band’s music meant to them. He got to hear what many emo bands and their music meant to the fans, but how this evening (and on the tour in general) we would all get to hear about what these bands and songs mean to him and his band. We would hear about these songs from their perspective. He announced that he and his band had picked a set list where everyone could scream as loud as they could! While Hawthorne Heights performed a few of their songs throughout the evening, such as “Niki FM”, “The Storm”, "Decembers”, and their smash hit “Ohio Is For Lovers”, which they ended the set with, they had a really fun mix of emo songs from a variety of popular bands. Woodruff laughed on a few occasions before a song, stating how the band in question would probably be upset being referred to as an Emo band, or have their song referred to as an emo song, but how just for this evening it would be considered emo!
Starting off the covers with Yellowcard’s “Ocean Avenue”, they got the crowd singing their hearts out in no time. Woodruff is a great storyteller. Before launching into “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” by Fall Out Boy, he told the story of performing with them very early on in a comic book store in Dayton, OH, and how they later got offered to go on tour with Fall Out Boy when they got big. He talked about how when you are in a band, you sometimes start to forget why you do it and stop listening to music as a fan, later realizing that you write and perform music because you love it. They then went on to perform “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World”, “Make Damn Sure” by Taking Back Sunday”, and “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” by Death Cab For Cutie. Woodruff told the crowd how the first out-of-town show the band was ever offered was in Louisville and how they spent a lot of time here as a band, being so close to Dayton, and having fond memories of the city. This evening had a short intermission, with the band finishing the pre-intermission set with “Until The Day I Die” by Story of The Year.
As the second half of the performance began, the band sat this one out as the orchestra performed a great, instrumental rendition of “Welcome To The Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance. The screen showed the lyrics to the song, with the crowd being the band for this one and singing along at full volume! The second half of the set included some bangers- “Adam’s Song” by Blink 182, “The Taste of Ink” by The Used, “Misery Business” by Paramore, “Miss Murder” by AFI, and “Hey There Delilah”, by Plain White T’s. Woodruff told the crowd near the end of the set how they always like to do a roll call, announcing the folks on stage and off, who had a part in making the tour happen. Emo Orchestra is such a fun concept and it was obvious that everyone in attendance had a great time singing their way down memory lane! I look forward to seeing how this concept evolves for future tours!
