Another year, another Sad Summer Festival! This time we travelled to Chicago and the weather and vibes from the show couldn’t have been better. The Salt Shed is one of our favorite venues that we’ve gotten to go to and it was the perfect place for our fellow pop punk friends to see our favorite bands. Curious about Sad Summer? Stick around to see which bands we got photos of!
Knuckle Puck
The first artist we got to see was the iconic, Knuckle Puck. If you’ve been a longtime reader of THP, you already know how much we love this group. We even put them on the cover of our first physical magazine! Getting to scream our favorite KP songs made us that much more excited for what was to come later in the day! They also had so much energy that you could tell the fans in the crowd were here for it. We lowkey almost got kicked in the head by a crowd-surfer, but it was worth it!
Real Friends
Next up, were the besties in Real Friends. When you see KP, you know RF is not far behind them. They’ll never get over the rumors of them being unable to tour without each other… they are true pop punk soulmates and we think that is beautiful. It was another high energy set from our favorite midwest trash besties! We won’t ever forget screaming out the lyrics to ‘Tell Me You’re Sorry’ with our new friends in the pit!
The Summer Set
The act we were personally here for was The Summer Set! Playing the hits that we grew up listening to and loving, playing a cover of One Direction’s ‘What Makes You Beautiful,’ and playing a new song for the Chicago crowd, TSS will never beat the allegations of being our favorite band! The Summer Set was only playing a few shows for Sad Summer Fest and then they’ll be heading home to write and record their first full length album in 8 years. We are already on the edge of our seats, waiting for when they announce the release date! Once they do, you know we’ll be the first ones to tell you all about it!
The Wonder Years
The second to last act that we caught of the night was The Wonder Years. Within the first song, we knew this was going to be incredible, as lead singer, Dan Campbell, had on a “Free Palestine” hat that he made sure to pull focus to to all of the photographers in the pit. He also made it a point to mention Palestine during one of the talking points in their set. We already loved this band, but them using their performance time to speak about something so important, made us love them even more!
The Maine
The last band we got to see was The Maine. We have been fans of The Maine for a very long time and they get better and better with each performance. For this tour, they have an orange step that John O’Callaghan uses during the second song of their set to sing with some of the fans on the barricade. We know those fans felt so special and are going to talk about their interaction with John for the rest of their lives. And that is what is so great about The Maine. Not only do they have incredible music and continue to grow and put out beautiful albums, but they really take the time to meet their fans and make them feel special. And that’s all we could ask for from one of our favorite bands!
We are so glad that we got to go to Chicago and see all of our favorite bands performing on the Sad Summer stage. We hope this festival sticks around for a long, long time. And as long as they are still touring, we’ll be front and center on that barricade!
Check out our gallery from the show below!
Have you been to Sad Summer Fest? If you haven’t, make sure to get your tickets here. You will not regret it!
What’s your favorite song from each of these artists? Let us know in the comments below or chat with us on Twitter, Instagram, and Discord.
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