HIGHLIGHTS & LOWLIGHTS FROM WHEN WE WERE YOUNG FEST

PRESENTED BY FIELD CORRESPONDENT Gabrielle Greenberg

Highlights

Never skip Taylor Acorn’s high-energy performance and gorgeous vocals. It was her first When We Were Young festival, and you could feel her joy and passion.

Boys Like Girls did a killer medley of all their hits, artfully fitting 12 favorites into their 30-minute set.

Yellowcard has leveled up over the last few years (even though they were always fantastic). Ryan’s vocals were crystal clear, and the live harmonies were gorgeous.

Simple Plan came out with all the nostalgic classics — several confetti cannons, their usual Scooby-Doos, and some crowd-surfing antics. They haven’t changed up much in the set if you’ve seen them in the last couple of years, but there’s a good reason for that!

All Time Low gave us a solid mix of new music and classics and even brought out blackbear as a sick surprise guest.

The Offspring I wasn’t sure about seeing them for a second time, but they were fantastic. They got the crowd amped up with the classics and still sound just as good as they always have!

Avril Lavigne was amazing (another one who never misses). I’m biased because she’s my favorite artist and was my first concert ever, but she definitely put on a great show and got the crowd feeling alive, singing together.

Holding Absence crushed it as the first Welsh band to play the festival! Amidst impossible visa delays, they found a band, Boundaries, to learn their whole set in 3 days and play with the lead singer when the rest of the band got their visas approved too late to make the fest. The set was tight and they brought incredible energy . you never would’ve known how quickly they had to pull together a miracle. Looking forward to seeing more from them!

Blink-182 wins the award for best opening, with a hilarious intro video to kick off their set. They were the ever-perfect mix of polished and raw, bringing their classic humor and a great blend of some of their best music. This was my fourth time seeing them, and it never gets old!

Panic! At The Disco was stellar! Brendon’s vocals were spectacular, and his joy and gratitude for being back to headline were palpable. The pure nostalgia of hearing A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out played live — and the entire crowd dancing and singing the whole thing at the top of their lungs — is something I’ll never forget. And to finally answer all our speculation, they brought out the original drummer for the first time in 12 years to close out the set!

Lowlights

VIP was far more crowded than last year. It wasn’t really worth switching areas much throughout the day unless you had a break between back-to-back sets. The lines in and out of the VIP areas were quite the bottleneck.

Merch lines looked long all day. It was definitely worth waiting the day prior to get merch and not have to spend time on that during the festival.