More about: Jimmy Eat World

With live, full-capacity shows still so far away for bands in the USA, and the novelty of seeing bandleaders performing on webcam in their living rooms having worn off sometime around June 2020, restless music fans need something more from their livestream content in our cursed year of 2021. Never fear: the wonderful folks in Jimmy Eat World have heard you loud and clear, raising the bar for what a mid-size band can offer with their Phoenix Sessions online album shows.

Choosing to debut songs from 2019’s underrated Surviving for the first show of the series, frontperson Jim Adkins and his comrades showed off the classic rock chops of that new collection with the heavy freakout of final track ‘Congratulations’ combining with inventive visual projections around the studio to remind us that Arizona’s emo legends are nothing if not consistent in their output.

Last week's offering was a true gift to hardcore fans, delivering mid-career favourite Futures in its entirety, framed with a fantastic sound mix and darting 360 degree camerawork that proved well worth the admission fee. The four-piece are complemented as ever by multi-instrumentalist Robin Vining providing keys, guitar and the high-end harmonies that fuse Jimmy Eat World’s earnest emo-rock together. The title track sounds bigger than ever, massive riffs tumbling into yearning vocals.

Hit single ‘Work’ evokes the One Tree Hill soundtracks it surely would have featured on, while ‘Pain’ and ‘Just Tonight’ have the band leaning into their heavier edge. The visual accompaniment feels a bit more subdued than the creative backdrops of the previous performance, but these songs stand on their own. ‘The World You Love’, a rarity in any setlist, explodes off the screen as it reaches its euphoric chorus, and cult classic ‘Kill’ pushes all the buttons of the album version.

Keeping chit-chat to a minimum, with Adkins stopping briefly to thank supporters and flashing his characteristic winning smile, Futures is arguably Jimmy’s most consistent release, where the music does all the talking. The slow burn of ‘Drugs Or Me’ and the desperation of ‘Polaris’ are the emotional nexus of the album and still pack a punch despite their delivery over thousands of miles across the Atlantic to us in locked-down UK. 

The creepy ‘Night Drive’ has a welcome live outing, the band leaning into the menace and space in the song, before the incomparable, legendary emo opus ‘23’ sends the show home in glorious fashion. It’s hard to overstate the impact of the track, doubtless the subject of thousands of MySpace statuses back in the day and inked on the skin of many fans the world over, and it’s delivered here with the energy and earnestness the lyrics demand.

With 1999’s sleeper success Clarity to complete the series on 12 February (you can still buy a ticket for that here), the Phoenix Sessions raise the bar of what to expect from a ticketed livestream. The sound is phenomenal, the camerawork never feels static and Jimmy Eat World have the songs to justify these full-album events. Now if they announce Chase This Light for the next series….

More about: Jimmy Eat World