Go ahead and call this year’s Boston Calling the “eras edition” — and let it be known that millennials loved it. How could anyone old enough to have a MySpace account resist the siren’s call of early aughts angst?
When the 2025 lineup for the Memorial Day festival arrived earlier this year, some regulars scoffed at the volume of acts from the 1990s and 2000s, which left limited room for buzzy up-and-comers. Saturday’s portion of the fest swayed towards the rock that raised millennials in particular: Fall Out Boy’s melodramatic dance-rock gems, Cage the Elephant’s wry alternative, and Avril Lavigne’s scowling pop-rock turned bratty bubblegum.
But Saturday commenced on a more modern note, with the stoicism of singer Sofia Isella complementing the afternoon downpour that greeted the festival’s first guests. Isella, a Billie Eilish-esque figure, cut through the rain with silvery blasts of gothic pop, and escorted the clouds elsewhere in time for Mon Rovîa’s sprightly Afro-Appalachian folk to spruce up the skies. Valley’s poppier indie sound followed, offering the day’s most accessible (if slightly forgettable) performance.
Other artists on Saturday’s lineup, like Allianz Blue Stage performer Timmy Skelly, felt like afterparty performers for Friday’s more country- and Americana-focused affair. Also on the Allianz Blue Stage, Lucius baked in lush folk-pop duets while Amble tugged the folk tradition overseas to their native Ireland.
The Orange Stage, which showcased rising New England talent, reflected other stages’ ratio of rock to raw folk. PINKLIDS, a newer act from Wareham, cast a cloak of fuzzy guitar riffs over the crowd, offering a Cramps-adjacent potpourri of surf, garage, and psychedelia. The experimentation continued with Somerville art-rock band sidebody, whose loopy lyricism evoked a range of delirium and winking cultural criticism. Rebuilder, Boston rock veterans who fall somewhere between punk and alternative, were surprisingly the most straightforward act of the bunch, and simon robert french provided a silken country contrast to the other three performers.
Elsewhere, the Green Stage’s afternoon pairing of The Maine and All Time Low — two crusaders of the 2000s emo/pop-punk craze — served as the official beginning of the millennial marathon. The one-two punch of energetic rock uncorked the day’s first throwbacks, like The Maine’s lusty “Girls Do What They Want” and the unlucky bounce of All Time Low’s “Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t).”
Similarly, Cage the Elephant’s selection of alt-rock seemed most blistering when frontman Matt Shultz dug into the band’s most aching material. The divorce-inspired “Ready To Let Go” and anxiety-riddled cut “Social Cues” evoked some of the crowd’s biggest reactions of the day (although the exasperation of “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” is certainly a made-for-millennials anthem if there ever was one).
Avril Lavigne put forth her own flippant rallying cry with her hit “Girlfriend,” though she repeatedly leaned on her fans’ exuberance to carry her set’s energy level. Still, when reaching back to hits penned as a teenager, like “Complicated” and “Sk8er Boi,” Lavigne’s vocals were as crisp as they were in 2002, and her inclusion in Saturday’s lineup felt like an important nod to her role as a leading woman in the arena of 2000s rock.
Across the complex on the Allianz Blue Stage, James Bay’s finale of “Hold Back The River,” a sweeping tide of soul, primed the scene for The Black Crowes. The group provided a blitz of blues-tinged material, punctuated by can’t-skip classics like “Remedy” and their fast-talking Otis Redding cover “Hard to Handle.”
But it was headliners Fall Out Boy who truly committed to hurtling guests through time, as they zipped through their 20-year catalog. The journey from 2003’s “Take This to Your Grave” to 2023’s “So Much (for) Stardust” was a humble brag — proof that their hits aren’t confined to any one window of the 2000s.
In between, lead vocalist and guitarist Patrick Stump paid some Boston fan service by performing a chunk of “Sweet Caroline” on the piano. “This is a dumb tourist thing, but we’re going to do it together,” he insisted.
But no matter how lengthy their legacy, Fall Out Boy are bound to one particular millennial touchstone: their 2007 hit “Thnks fr th Mmrs.” The breakup song revolves around a not-so-sweet refrain of “Thanks for the memories / Even though they weren’t so great.” As tens of thousands of fans hollered the quip in unison, they had the chance to either revisit bittersweet flashbacks from the era, or overwrite adolescent angst with a new memory from their adulthood. Either way, what perfectly ironic bliss.
A little rain couldn’t stop Boston Calling from launching with a country-fied opening nightLast-minute lineup changes, forecast, and what’s new: A fan’s guide to Boston Calling 2025
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