Emo Night has gotten out of control.
What began as a way for Luke O’Neil, Texas Mike, and others to play ’90s and ’00s emo anthems off a Spotify playlist in the comforts of a bar amongst friends (both online and IRL) has grown first to fill the Sinclair’s restaurant, and now the Cambridge live music venue’s main performance hall. Last night, Emo Night took over St. Patrick’s Day at the Sinclair, giving the real kids a chance to enjoy the holiday not with the sounds of Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly, but Brand New and Sunny Day Real Estate.
Things got so out of control (but in a totally manageable way) that one dude decided to crowd surf during Piebald’s all-inclusive 2002 scene anthem “American Hearts” (a song whose popular refrain of “Hey! You’re part of it!” yesterday graced the Sinclair’s front entrance marque facing Church Street). The crowd surfer’s name is Joseph Curley, a graphic designer and front-end developer from Cambridge, and Vanyaland decided to reach out to him to see what inspired such moves.
Michael Marotta: What was it like crowd surfing at an event where no band was playing?
Joseph Curley: It was kind of like crowd surfing any other time, so it was pretty gnarly.
Was it weird at all?
Kind of, but the whole night was pretty weird, I was surrounded by a group of 20-somethings passionately belting out songs about being really bummed out about high school shit, so crowd surfing didn’t make it any more or less weird.
How long were you held up?
Probably about a minute. I definitely got to sing a verse and a chorus up there.
Why’d you decide to go for it during Piebald?
Alright, real talk. My friend Shawn was pretty drunk and told me earlier in the night that he was going to go for it at the next song he knew, so he got to ride the crowd wave during a Taking Back Sunday song earlier in the night. When Piebald came on we were both pretty stoked, I tried to say “Hey man, you should crowd surf again.” But he thought I asked him to help get me up so I could crowd surf. So, uh, he helped me up and it just happened.
Have you ever crowd surfed at an actual Piebald show?
No but I bet it would be just as good, maybe even better.
Why do you think Emo Night is attracting such a lively crowd lately?
It’s fun, it turns out getting to re-experience what is essentially a mix CD we all probably made in 2006 with a bunch of strangers is kind of a blast.
How do you think Emo Night can improve and/or get better?
More drinks named after Braid puns — props to whoever named the “Please Drink Faster”.
What’s your perfect Emo Night?
I’m not really the atypical emo nerd the night caters to — the only Dashboard song I know is the one from the Spiderman movie, so my perfect night would be a playlist of Braid, The Get Up Kids, Knapsack, Saves the Day, and Rainer Maria. They do play some of that stuff, but its pretty sparse, so I only really know about one in every 10 songs. That’s probably why I was so stoked about the piebald song, actually.
Emo Night returns to the Sinclair on April 14.
EMO NIGHT STARTS NOW!!! #emonightboston https://t.co/49pBh1cF7x pic.twitter.com/twen3NGG2m
— TΣJAS (@Texasmike) March 18, 2016