Bayside kick off 25th anniversary tour
- Bandifesto
- Sep 2
- 3 min read
By Ida V. Eskamani
“It’s not cool to like us, and you don’t want to make it cool to like you, because then they might not actually like you. They’re just saying they like you.”
Anthony Raneri, founder, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of stalwart punk band Bayside, knows who he is and why he makes music. At this moment, he’s in his living room in Franklin, Tennessee, gearing up for the third leg of the band’s worldwide 25th anniversary tour, archly named “The Errors Tour” and kicking off at Orlando’s House of Blues this weekend.
Founded in their namesake neighborhood Bayside, Queens, in New York City, the band is playing two back-to-back nights in Disney Springs with two different sets, featuring B-sides, deep cuts and songs they haven’t played live in over a decade.
Night one is set to include songs from Sirens and Condolences, Self-Titled, The Walking Wounded and Shudder. The second night will feature songs from Killing Time, Cult, Vacancy, Interrobang and the band’s most recent release, There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive.
“Bayside is a cult” is a phrase devoted fans across the world have tattooed to their bodies, and based on the anticipation for this tour, the devotion and desire remains strong.
“We always say ‘change the sightlines,’ give the audience a different look every year. … We’ve always tried to walk the line of celebrating the back catalog, while also celebrating the new stuff too … not digging too deeply into nostalgia, while also kind of respecting it,” says Raneri. “So we thought that a cool thing for this tour would be to really lay it all out there and celebrate all the old on one night and all the new on another.”
It’s this intentionality paired with authenticity Raneri credits for the band’s longevity. “Slow and steady has always been the way that we try to do things,” he says. “Just do good work, make good music, play good shows, don’t jump on trends and just stay the course. Just be us.”
Raneri continues, waxing philosophical. “Not since the beginning of the music industry has any amount of money or record label or radio station or anything been able to force people to listen to something if they don’t like it. You can have all the money in the world and all the power in the world, but you can’t force people to listen to something that’s not good,” he says. “The image is important, the social media following is important. The clicks are important, but it is not the most important thing, because what are you going to give them once you have all their attention?”
Rejecting industry pressures and creating their own sound has helped the band stay fresh, retaining longtime loyal fans while growing their base. Their sound is uniquely Bayside, punk at its core but drawing inspiration from an array of sounds. Says Raneri, “A lot of Bayside records have been like, ‘What if we took showtunes and made them fast?’ … So now it’s listening to a lot of thrash metal and traditional klezmer music, and saying, ‘Well what if we combine those somehow?'”
Raneri muses that it’s a full-circle moment playing the stage at the House of Blues. In the early years, booking Orlando venues like the Social or Will’s Pub were breakthrough moments. They cut their teeth in Central Florida towns like DeLand, Lakeland and Melbourne. “We have some friends in Melbourne who actually have a really funny story. … Somebody that they knew said that Bayside was probably the biggest band to ever come out of Melbourne, because they assume we were from there. Because that’s how often we played down there.”
Joking aside, “Brevard County’s Bayside” does have a nice ring to it.
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Ida is an Iranian-American from Florida who grew up with the Beatles, and came of age in the pit. She will talk to you about music for as long as you will pretend to listen. She is founder of Bandifesto, a little blog with a big heart
