On stage last night (6/14) at Queens’ Knockdown Center for the sold-out first night of Citizen‘s ‘Decade of Youth‘ tour, Mat Kerekes was reminiscing about when the Ohio band was sleeping over in Pennsylvania 10 years ago so they could make their debut album Youth with producer Will Yip at Studio 4. He said he was going through a rough time, but that he turned to guitarist Nick Hamm and said maybe it’s all okay because maybe they’re making something really special, and Nick replied, “Yeah, maybe.” After releasing Youth on Run For Cover on June 11, 2013, Citizen hit the road pretty hard, opening for bands like Man Overboard, The Story So Far, and The Wonder Years and doing stints on the Warped Tour. If memory and the internet serve, Citizen didn’t even play a headlining NYC show behind Youth until they brought their tour with You Blew It!, Slingshot Dakota, and True Love to the small Studio at Webster Hall over a year after Youth was released. But as Nick said on stage, Citizen made it out of the trenches, and they celebrated Youth‘s 10th anniversary at the biggest headlining NYC show they’ve ever played–the spacious former factory building holds roughly 3,000 people, and it was obvious that Youth means a lot to just about everyone in attendance last night.
Looking around the crowd, you could see tons of people wearing the new ‘Decade of Youth‘ merch that was made for this tour, and from the minute they opened the show with “Roam the Room,” a mass of fans rushed towards the stage and people were yelling every word from all angles. Citizen always bring it live, but you could tell that this celebration of Youth was just as special to the band as it was to the crowd, and they seemed even more at the top of their game than ever. Citizen’s music has changed a lot over the years, and in many ways Youth does feel tied to a specific era, but Citizen performed with all the urgency in the world. It seemed less like they were relying on an album anniversary to stir up nostalgia and more like they were genuinely grateful for the opportunity to celebrate something they made 10 years ago in such a triumphant way.
The first half of Youth is basically a greatest hits, and whether they were playing eternal banger “The Summer” or atmospheric ballad “The Night I Drove Alone,” they gave 110% and the crowd gave it right back to them. The second half of the record is lesser-played material, including a chunk of songs they haven’t played at all since the pre-COVID days. I’m not sure if this is true, but according to Setlist.fm, last night was the second time they ever played “Your Head Got Misplaced” since the band’s hometown Youth record release show at Frankie’s Inner-City in Toledo a decade ago. The fan faves were a blast as always, and it was a real treat to get to hear these deeper cuts as well.
Youth has clearly continued to strike a chord with people over the years, and billing these as Youth shows was a big sell, but Citizen are by no means a nostalgia band and they made that very clear in the encore. They came back out after Youth and did two songs from their latest album, 2021’s great Life In Your Glass World, and they had the crowd bouncing around and yelling along to these too. Then they played an entirely new, not-yet-released song called “If You’re Lonely” which sounded great. Sometimes the encore portion of newer material after an album anniversary show can be a drag in comparison to the main set. For Citizen, this was not the case at all.
Citizen also mentioned on stage that they wanted to celebrate Youth with friends they’ve made over the years, and all dates on this run have direct support from their Run For Cover labelmates Fiddlehead, plus New York hardcore locals Illusion opened this one with a hard-hitting 8 PM set. Fiddlehead were great too; they definitely had a good chunk of people in the crowd who came ready to mosh and yell the words to their songs, and they seemed genuinely grateful to be there. Pat Flynn talked about how he loves playing in front of Citizen’s crowds, and how crazy it was to be playing such a large room that was pretty packed for their opening set. They’re also fresh off announcing a new album, Death Is Nothing To Us, and they previewed some material from that, which sounded just as great as their time-tested fan faves.
Citizen’s Youth tour with Fiddlehead continues in Boston tonight (6/15), and they’re livestreaming the Chicago show on Saturday (6/17). All remaining dates are listed below. For more on Youth, read Danielle Chelosky’s retrospective essay Citizen’s ‘Youth’ at 10: as miserable and comforting as ever.
We’ve also got an exclusive tri-color vinyl variant of Youth and an exclusive pinwheel variant of the new Fiddlehead LP in the BV shop.
Watch a clip of Citizen playing “Sleep” and a video of them debuting the new song:
citizen – a decade of ‘youth’ pic.twitter.com/LvMZ7Vpgg2
— Andrew Sacher (@andrewdsacher) June 15, 2023
Citizen — 2023 Tour Dates
Jun 14, 2023 Knockdown Center New York, NY *
Jun 15, 2023 House of Blues Boston Boston, MA *
Jun 17, 2023 House of Blues Chicago Chicago, IL *
Jun 18, 2023 Metro Chicago, IL *
Jun 22, 2023 Emo’s Austin Austin, TX *
Jun 24, 2023 The Wiltern Los Angeles, CA *
Jun 25, 2023 House of Blues Anaheim Anaheim, CA *
Oct 21 & 22 2023 When We Were Young Las Vegas, NV
* – Youth show with Fiddlehead