10 Year Anniversary Tour Trend

Written By: Ariel Riley

Recently it has become evident that there is a new trend rising in the music industry that seems to be making bands an adequate amount of money, ten-year anniversary tours. On these tours, bands celebrate the 10-year birthday of whatever album is turning 10 by playing the album in its entirety. I had the pleasure of witnessing this first hand on April 1, 2017 when I saw my favorite band We the Kings play their first album also titled “We the Kings” from front to back. It had been years since I heard some of those songs live, and that alone guaranteed that I would be in for a real treat. Other bands that have also tried out this touring strategy include Mayday Parade who played their first album “Tales Told by Dead Friends” Yellowcard played “Ocean Avenue” on their farewell tour, and the Used stepped up the game by playing in each city of their tour two nights back to back. The first night they play “The Used” while the second night they play “In Love and Death” in it’s entirety to celebrate 15 years as a band.
 
Out of all of these shows combined, most of the dates were sold out or close to selling out. This ten-year anniversary trend could easily live on in the punk/rock scene with this genre's fanbase landing in that age range that loves nostalgia, a homage tour to an album is going to continue to be successful. As a matter of fact, shortly after the “Tales Told By Dead Friends” tour rapped up for Mayday Parade, they were back on the road for their “A Lesson in Romantics” tour, the 10 year anniversary of that album. There are plenty of bands that could follow this trend, Fall Out Boy could tour “Infinity on High” for 2017 or Folie à Duex in 2018, Panic! at the Disco could tour “Pretty. Odd” in 2018 and All Time Low could do “So Wrong, it’s Right” and they could all sell out arenas. It will be interesting to see if bands utilized this seemingly simple tour structure or ignore its genius.