It’s that time of year again: Warm weather, BBQ’s, and time for your favorite bands to go on festival tours again. Kicking off this summer’s ring of larger festival tours was the smaller, more exclusive Journey’s Backyard BBQ. Headlining that outdoor fiasco of music and skateboarding was Taking Back Sunday, one of my favorite bands not only in the studio but in performance as well.

Opening with the awesome first track from their debut Tell All Your Friends, You Know How I Do (which I must say I was super pumped that they played!), frontman Adam Lazarra and company ripped through their set inducing crowd pleasing sing alongs and frequent crowd surfing on the sunny but breezy Saturday evening in the Chicago suburbs. It was incredible fun to hear them perform everything from the newer material from New Again that comes out June 2nd as well as the old school classics like Cute Without The (E), A Decade Under The Influence, and a rare live performance of What It Feels Like To Be A Ghost. Not only was it great to see them again live on stage, it was great talking to them before and after the show. Very personable and funny!
My only complaint with the Journey’s Backyard BBQ? None that I can think of at all, other than there was no actual BBQ. I was hoping for some gigantic pits fueled with charcoaled flames of good food. Oh well…there’s plenty of summer ahead of us to do that on my own time!
Head on over to Buzznet.com where you can see the gallery of 72 exclusive photos I took of the band that they’re featuring right now. A preview:

Watch the video for “Sink Into Me”, the new single from New Again coming June 2nd! It’s good for the soul..and it’s a damn good video! And of course, special thanks to Karen and Taking Back Sunday.