Spice Girls offered an appetizer of the obsession that was soon to follow as Ginger left a hole big enough in my heart for five guys from Florida to synchronize dance right into. Thus, the Backstreet Boys became my first musical interest and made my family question my sanity and often they still do. Though, now for other reasons. Anyways, BSB – what we call them on the actual streets – was my end, and it was all from around 4th or 5th grade up through middle school. So much so that BSB is probably what most people I spent those tumultuous puberty-stricken years with actually remember about me. However, by 8th grade, I was as moody as Judy, and with boy bands riding off into MTV’s sunset – in came a new genre for me…whiney white boys singing about how life is unfair, a nightmare really. There were plenty to choose from but Good Charlotte took hold of me. They were the gateway drug that held me over a couple of years until the harder stuff kicked in when my best friend showed me a video by The Used, and I made that band my entire personality for the next four years.
If I had to do one of those painful icebreakers, and was asked what three albums best described you in high school, two would be by The Used. Those albums had a particular array of rage that spoke to the raging bull that was inside of me, soon to be unleashed by high school policliques. It’s never not fascinating to me how we spent four years of an entire lifetime in high school, yet it’s such a defining period in our lives. For me, I was angry a lot of the time but I masked it with humor; as I alway (and still) do. However, like, is that just the teenage experience? I mean, I went to When We Were Young and stood among some 85,000 people who likely felt the same exact way I did 20 years ago. Were our teenage cries just Sound Effects and Overdramatics?
To get into the why of why emo took off when it did would cause me to write for days, maybe even years, and perhaps if a publisher stumbles upon this and wants me to – I could muster up the energy to do so but until then I will just speak as to why I was sad and why The Used was a screamo-infused weighted blanket for me then.
Again, I don’t think I was unique because of any of the following teen angst that got me down. I’m sure a lot of people can relate to feeling like an ogre compared to the popular girls in their Abercrombie sweaters with the fur-lined hoods, embarrassed because you were the poor kid, utterly alone because every Friday they were at home watching Reba because the cool kids didn’t like you like they liked all your other friends. High school wasn’t lonely, but there were many times I did feel completely alone and for a solid three years I didn’t want to exist anymore. But the one thing that I could do alone was decorate my room – obsessively – watch TV, and listen to these emo bands, The Used being the most frequently listened to album during those three years of wondering whether or not I’d need to even worry about college.
So fast forward a bit. I’ve made it not only through high school but college too – I’m a grown-up with a boyfriend even! I’m 31 (okay, I thought maybe I was younger at the time), and I’m going to what is pegged as the last Warped Tour in every SoCal emo kid’s favorite spot – Ventura. It’s by the beach, never insanely hot, and it’s just the perfect place to sing along to bands for 12 hours in the middle of the summer. So we go, and The Used is the final band of the night. Everyone I went to has gone back to the car and it’s just me. Suddenly I was that 16-year-old girl again, alone, listening to The Used but at that moment I was a new version of her. Life wasn’t perfect, but girl – we were getting there. I’d listened to that band during one of the darkest chapters of my life and I’d also spent so many years going to Warped Tour, that in that moment when I should’ve been overwhelmed with sadness I’d kept bottled up from the past as well as the tears that should have fallen knowing Warped Tour was over – I was okay with closing that chapter altogether and moving on, and I did.
For a long time, I didn’t listen to a lot of the music that made Warped Tour, and now, When We Were Young, popular. There was something in me that pushed me away from all of that. Maybe I’d grown tired of white men telling me how to feel. Perhaps I just wasn’t as depressed anymore so it felt unnecessary. Whatever the reason, The Used got placed on the shelf in the back of my mind but when tickets for 2024 were acquired, I knew there was one band I just had to see, and I would’ve seen them both days but alas, once was enough because while that Warped Tour moment by the beach felt like the ending, When We Were Young felt like an end credit scene; one more bit before we were over and done.
And yes, The Used could announce an album tour tomorrow and this post would have to be added to because I’d have to go on and go but for now – When We Were Young with The Used will remain one more special moment between me and my EMOtional support band. I stood there and once again, watched them alone and more importantly was happier than the last time we said goodbye for now, so maybe we’ll reunite in a few more years so I can touch base and report I’ve strayed even further away from being that sad 16-year-old girl.
Crushgasm 