For someone who came of age smack dab in the middle of the 2000s, A Day to Remember’s current Maximum Fun tour is about the best thing you could ask for. Featuring The Wonder Years, co-headliner Yellowcard, and of course A Day to Remember, the breakdowns are aplenty, and the sing-along choruses were throat-tearing.

This tour package is meant to feature four bands, actually, but unfortunately, English trio Dinosaur Pile-Up encountered some visa troubles and hadn’t yet made it to the tour package. Massive bummer for the fans of that band and really for everyone who came out to see this tour in the early days—but on the plus side, sort-of opener (sort-of because they had to start about 40 minutes later than anticipated) The Wonder Years got to play an extra five or so songs, and massive plus side, lots of them were from 2013’s The Greatest Generation.

The Wonder Years were a band that I had been meaning to see, but something always slipped through the cracks. I knew they had a reputation for a fiery live show, and I know that Dan “Soupy” Campbell had a reputation as an unforgettable live vocalist, but it just never worked out, you know? Well, 2013 me was absolutely thrilled because while the band played a ton from their various albums, there was nothing quite like hearing “Passing Through a Screen Door” following “There, There.” The hollow chords of the latter snapped me back to my past like a lightning bolt, Campbell’s soft crooning about repeated screwups exploding into raw vocal chords as he despairs about trying your best and still failing—it was everything I could have asked for. They filled that sold-out 8,000-cap room with a warmth and genuineness that is impossible to replicate. Dan had a moment where he spoke to the new listeners in the room—the new folks who were just now connecting with their music and feeling something stir. I wish I could have told him that he was still doing that for the longtime fans too.

Yellowcard was the surprise hit of the night for me. While I’ve never been what I could call a die-hard fan of theirs, there being some songs here and there that I appreciate (the obvious one being “Ocean Avenue”), their set kind of blew me away.

With a few breaks here and there, it’s easy to expect them to just kind of be cashing in on the wave of nostalgia bands making a return to form, but this is not the case with the string-studded pop punk of Ryan Key and company. What’s a little strange about the show is that Yellowcard is co-headlining with A Day to Remember, but from what I could tell, the 65 minutes of music that they put on was more or less a headliner experience front to back (which led to some kind of awkward momentum issues during ADTR’s set). But with that “full set experience” in mind—wow!

Flames, confetti, blasts of fog, a massive wall of LEDs, and a lighting director that certainly knew how to take advantage of a house rig—Yellowcard were not messing around, and the band members showed it. Each and every one of them occupied the maximum amount of space that they could use on the stage, with standout Sean Mackin spending time as if he had a step goal to get in by crossing back and forth the maximum amount of times. It was sincerely one of the better performances I have seen a band put on, with the energy of a group just starting out, and they are rounding out 28 years of existence!

Obvious closer “Ocean Avenue” had the cavernous Armory hopping along in fierce excitement. The baseball-shirt-studded 40-year-old near me as the set closed down absolutely lost his mind when the opening notes played—a reminder of how long the power of music can stick with us.

A Day to Remember’s massive stage was—I think—meant to be a massive, imposing presence as each member came out to enormous blasts of fog from the many jets lining the front of the stage. However, I think there was something lost in the planning between these co-headliners. Impressive in its own right, but following what Yellowcard put on, it felt a little scaled down. Either way, as McKinnon and co. took the stage, the opening du-du-dus of “The Downfall of Us All” came washing over the crowd, and that nagging thought was laid to rest—the party had begun again.

A huge wall of fans hung out on stage near the drum riser who got a very, very personal look out over the enormous crowd—a very cool and personal touch. The first things those folks probably saw as the halfway mark of “Downfall…” rolled through was what would more or less represent the rest of the night—wave after wave after wave of crowd surfers. While the rest of the photographers in the pit were only in there for about seven minutes, there had to be at least 20 people who security safely carried to the ground in that timeframe.

Song three jumped to Common Courtesy, and we had our first bang of confetti—the ADTR staple. Between that and the few songs off of Homesick, you were beginning to wonder when they’d cover their new material (this year’s Big Ole Album Vol. 1). Well—right afterward, in fact! They joked about not quite being Taylor Swift’s song, but their own little thing—and they played “Bad Blood” to raucous cheers. They danced around the corners of their discography the rest of the night (though made sure to give LeBron James a nice nod with a Space Jam clip prior to playing the song named after the NBA star). In all, a thunderous but standard night for the rock veterans, but really, what more could you ask for from one of rock’s most reliable bands?