Two Sold-Out Nights, Three Iconic Bands: Yellowcard, New Found Glory, and Plain White T’s Take Over Asbury Park.

Photos: Andre Paras

Yellowcard’s Up Up Down Down Tour sets a new high score!

Yellowcard, New Found Glory, and Plain White T’s teamed up for not just one, but TWO sold out nights back-to-back Friday nights in Asbury Park, NJ at The Stone Pony Summer Stage.

The Up Up Down Down Tour certainly comes with its nostalgic aesthetics and appeal. Bands walked out to start and walked off stage after sets to famous throwbacks, whether it be in classic-rock music, to iconic retro video games, and staple movie quotes and moments predominantly from the ‘80s.

Yellowcard’s logo seen on their drum set for this era is a nice Nintendo spoof, and their merch rocked the same inspirations. New Found Glory came out with “Punch-Out!!”, the Nintendo video game inspired merch. As well as  “New World Order” (nWo), a pro wrestling group, tees with the letters swapped out to NFG, of course. And not to mention a My Friends Over You x Beavis and Butthead shirt. Safe to say these merch booths were like no other.

In one night, fans could hear “Ocean Avenue” live on Asbury Park’s own “Ocean Avenue,” as well as “My Friends Over You,” “Hey There Delilah,” and some of the best of the pop-punk genre, as well as radio pop-rock of the 2000s.

And for reasons like that, it was safe to say fans lined up early before doors to secure a good spot. Stereotypically, shows like these garner the “elder emo” millennial audience, but there was also a solid amount of families and young kids looking to enjoy the show, showing that this scene and genre are safe and sound for the future.

Plain White T’s kicked off this hell of a bill with some new material, while also diving back into these hits that anyone born before the mid-2000s has had to have heard at least once in their lives, unless you’ve been living under a rock.

Many fans came more for NFG and Yellowcard, but found themselves realizing they’ve listened to songs like “Rhythm of Love,” “1, 2, 3, 4,” or “Our Time Now,” which this band even performed as musical guests on the show iCarly at one point.

Safe to say they were the most commercial group of the bunch, despite being on first, but their soft pop-rock and similarities to pop-punk lyrically have always been a nice crossover for the more Warped Tour type folks.

After ripping through eight tracks, that meant New Found Glory was up next, with a tight hour set. The band kicked off their set with “A Love Song”, off their new 2026 album Listen Up!, which they played a few tracks off of.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, seems to be the mantra of that record, with the band’s sound seemingly not changing at all, yet the new songs being big and refreshing.

For OG fans, night 2 people got a little bonus treat: NFG swapped out a track and their usual Part of Your World cover for “Better Off Dead” and “Listen to Your Friends,” which Jordan Pundik, the frontman of the group, says they haven’t played in a long time.

But regardless of what night you go to, the band jam packs the set with all the crowd pleasers fans would want to hear, with 4 songs off Sticks and Stones, usually 3 off their self-titled album, and 2 off of Catalyst for a 15 song set.

And don’t worry, the band is still up to their usual teenage antics. Before Sincerely Me, Jordan takes to the mic and talks up bassist Ian a bit, hyping him up as the “sexiest” and “best bassist of p-p-p-pop-PUNK,” putting an emphasis on the P’s.

Then Jordan killed a part of Bro Hymn on bass, while Ian sang and flung his t-shirt off into the crowd. They also flung some more t-shirts via catapult all the way to the back of the crowd beforehand.

Last but not least, Yellowcard arrived, with a grand theme of the Top Gun video game and Tom Cruise’s famous “feeling the need for speed” line from the hit movie, which preceded the group's opening with their newest title track, “Better Days.”

The stage was more alive than ever with all the “Lights and Sounds”, and retro edited montages to go and match with almost every song on this set.

Despite the theme of the tour being nostalgia and seeing old friends amongst this bill of bands, Yellowcard was not only here to look back. A third of the band’s set was songs off their newest album, but it was nicely balanced with another third being off of “Ocean Avenue,” and the last third being a good mix of songs throughout the years.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Ryan Key and the gang of Yellowcard once before, opening for Third Eye Blind back in 2024, and he’s always great at talking, getting vulnerable, and guiding us through a well-crafted set.

Throughout the show, he talked about things like how special New Jersey is to him and many bands of the scene, like a “home away from home” to many, bringing the Floridian Ocean Avenue all the way to the northeast.

He talked about how the band almost hung up the white flag and ended forever in 2016, not even able to sellout the much smaller inside the 850 person capacity Stone Pony stage then, and how great it feels now to be bouncing back between Jersey and New York, selling 15,000 tickets to shows in the area and selling out the 4500 person capacity Summer Stage at Asbury TWICE on this tour.

Key also opened up on his struggle with anxiety, even dating to a recent episode on this tour, and how much it meant for him to have a song like Lift A Sail not usually on setlists on this tour with him, as this is when he finally started talk therapy during this time with a whole lot going on in his life, and he urged the crowd to do the same if they ever felt the need to. Waiting too long is not ideal, nor is “simply writing a song about it,” as he mentioned.

The show is split into two parts, with a nice stripped-down/acoustic section in the middle set in “Meemaw’s Basement,” a cool way of playing slower tracks like “Back Home” and “Empty Apartment.” 

Here, Key talked about wearing the Nirvana shirt he wore that night, and he felt like himself all those years ago, sitting on a dingy couch and writing those hits that had the band take off.

With Father’s Day being the end of the tour and coming up right after this show on the weekend, he dedicated “Big Blue Eyes” from the new album to his son and to all the fathers in the crowd.

The rest of this set was electric, the band sounded tight, and the nighttime summer breeze mixed with these beachy violin pop-punk songs made for the perfect show at the perfect place to experience it too, not to mention.

So if you have the chance to catch Yellowcard or any of these amazing bands, make sure to do. There’s plenty of throwback moments, but also plenty of new ones to look forward to. And hey, all their singers can still hit those same notes for the most part that they were doing 20+ years ago now.

The kids are alright. The bands are doing just fine. All aging like fine wine.

SCENE SNAPS 

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