10-Year-Old Eyeliner

A Review of Emo-Night Boston

This piece was featured in the Late Winter 2020 Monadnock Underground print quarterly.

It was four years into our relationship and two months into our marriage when I finally introduced my wife to my culture. We went to Emo-Night.

For me, the self-indulgence of emo music was a way of negotiating a petulant adolescence. In broad strokes, emo is about being sad for two reasons: because you’re alone or because a crush doesn’t like you back. Being a socially sufficient nerd, it was the lady bit that drove my hormone-pumped body straight into lyrics about Not Being Okay.

I was mature enough to recognize that I was sad all the time, but not quite ready to attribute my depression to an “existential situation” or the “absence of God” (I was insufferable well into my 20’s). Emo’s narcissistic melancholy, it’s costume fashion, and it’s hard-hitting guitar riffs all affirmed my feelings in the most abrasive, direct way possible. But to call emo my culture is a bit of a stretch. Did various permutations of the music, from pop-punk to hardcore, take up disproportionate space on my iPod? Sure. Did I experiment with eyeliner? Of course. Did I wear skinny jeans so tight they made my waist bleed after a long day of walking? Yes. Did my hair grow so long that my inlaws still call my senior photo “The Rachel”? See for yourself.

What I wanted out of Emo-Night was to be taken back to when I was fifteen, throwing punches in the mosh pit and singing along until my throat went hoarse. I was expecting a version of Carnival, full of the exaggerations and compensations of old transforming young, like moms letting loose at their company’s annual 80’s night. Standing in line outside Brighton Music Hall, it was clear I miscalculated. Everyone was wearing black band shirts, from the tiny blondes with big, circle-rim glasses to the ragged men who hadn’t showered in weeks. My expectations involved more color, but neither teased, scene hair nor big, winged eyeliner was represented. Instead I saw a group of people weakly holding onto their youth, too tired to give it a full go.

The iteration of Emo -Night we attended was a spinoff of “Emo -Night Brooklyn”, a spin off of “Emo -Night -LA”, formerly known as “Taking Back Tuesday” (a name the lead singer of Taking Back Sunday did not enjoy nearly as much as his fans). Samantha Grasso of the Daily Dot quoted one of the founders of Emo-Night on its purpose, “I think we have gotten to this point where this is the music we grew up with, and you hit kind of this quarter-life crisis moment — I know I definitely did…so [Emo-Night is] kind of a way for people to be kids again.” In other words, the intent of Emo-Night was to bring back the sonic feels of yesterday not yesteryear.

The show started late. My wife and I purchased our overpriced drinks and we settled into the sidelines to people-watch. We deemed the tank-topped mosh bros with their signature, arrogant smirk “Kyles” and appreciated the fits of skinny jeans. The projector screen behind the stage cycled through Typography-101-worthy slides of “Let’s Fucking Go”. Lights began to dim, a tiny Chicano man with the signature front-hair flip hustled on stage, the sound system turned on with a pop, and the night began to a song I didn’t know.

Part of the thrill of an emo show is the energy of its frontman. Our DJ was tasked with more than a club DJ: he had to be the simulacrum for the whole concert experience. He must thrash, lip-sync, and make us feel like we were seeing My Chemical Romance for the first time. In this, he was superb. He knew exactly when to cut out the choruses that we all had etched into our So Fucking Sad hearts and what songs would get the most screams. He may have been a second-rate Gerard Way, but we were there because we couldn’t see the real thing.

I’ve read that the song selection is a bit more genre-forward at other Emo- Nights, but this one was a case study in conservatism. The pop side was over-represented with tracks like Boys Like Girls’ “The Great Escape” and Metro Station’s “Shake It”. We must have been subjected to fifteen songs that broke the Top 40 at some point, highly disappointing for a scene that could claim some non-mainstream cred. Even titans like The Used and Taking Back Sunday were missing from the rotation, nevermind any deeper cuts. For Christ’s sake, he played Limp Bizkit’s “Rollin”, a song I only know because it was the intro music to my once beloved video game NHL Hitz 2002. That just doesn’t belong.

If I had to speculate, the set list was reduced to the common denominator of the crowd. In a genre as ill-defined as emo, the ability to please everyone without alienating anyone is a tough act. The hardcore kids would lose their mind over A Day To Remember. The Sad Girls™ would throw their panties for Dashboard Confessional. I would have come in my pants for Brand New. Others would have lost interest, and that is the one thing an event like this can’t afford to lose. Certain bands may feel trapped by their top songs on Spotify, but Emo-Night in a new city is caged by its most listened to music. We were stuck in high-tempo, synth-laden purgatory.

The most exciting quality of Emo-Night was its openness for fans getting on stage. I remember going to shows and thinking how cool it would be to be the front man. I, like most of us, was not willing to put in the work to get there, but if I could soul-swap with the lead singer in that moment, I’d give it a try. A clap on Medium gives me a jolt of dopamine, imagine what a chorus of adoring fans would do?

A man with an overgrown neckbeard and dirty glasses came on stage, Budweiser in hand and surrounded by women who wouldn’t normally give him the time of day. I imagined him 10 years ago walking to his 6th Period study hall, the dull drone of ear phones blasting The Used out of his walkman. Yet here he was, center stage staring into an excited audience. He lifted his beer to his lips and downed it. The crowd roared with whoops of approval. Bert McKracken couldn’t have done it better.

The premise of Emo-Night is a compelling one. It invites those of us who once were our own worst enemies to sign a peace treaty. I’m twenty-seven and married; the deep fear of how to get the pretty girls to like me or how to look cool in a mosh pit has evaporated. (Incidentally, there was a pretty girl who hit on me that night, but despite my best efforts I didn’t look cool in the mosh pit. My knee still hurts.) I walked away from the night like a man who came for a filet mignon and got a cube steak. It’s not what I wanted, but it wasn’t bad.

I hope my impressions of the audience are unfounded. I hope that they, like me, come to events like this to relive their youth in all its playfulness and self-deprecation. I don’t miss being sad, I don’t miss hating myself, and I don’t miss wanting to die. I do miss the unrestrained energy and the excitement of feeling a way for the first time. Sadly, Emo-Night can never be my emo-night — that is reserved for long car rides with old friends, reminiscing at how stupid we were and pretending that our lives were simpler then. As Jesse Lacey once said, “I’m gonna stay eighteen forever.” Not forever, but maybe for one more night.