Celebrating 25 Years of Bayside in Nashville

September 11, 2025 - Nashville, TN

Bayside. What a band.

Currently, they’re on tour celebrating 25 years as a band, and I was fortunate enough to see them in Nashville. They’ve split this tour into two nights in each city, with a set list spanning through all of their albums, but each on one night or the other, giving everyone the chance to hear more songs and more deep cuts. I attended both nights, but only photographed night one, and will refer to that night through most of this.

Night one covered “Sirens and Condolences,” “Self Titled,” “The Walking Wounded,” and “Shudder,” while night two covered “Killing Time,” “Cult,” “Vacancy,” “Interrobang,” and their most recent album, There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive.

Both nights, The Sleeping opened the show, and set the mood for the evening. They quickly turned anyone unfamiliar with them into fans, including myself. Between songs came mentions that they have known Bayside for years - longer than there has been a Bayside - and the whole room felt like a family reunion.

The energy (and sweat) did not stop there. Bayside took the stage and opened with “Montauk”, which is a personal favorite of mine, and the crowd knew what to do. Throughout the set they played more fan favorites such as “Duality”, “The Walking Wounded”, and “Dear Tragedy”.

Between songs, the band talked about how special this tour has been to them, while also lovingly bullying the (older members of the) crowd about their sore knees and being out past their bedtime to be there.

After playing almost twenty songs, the band walked off stage, but everyone knew better - as we hadn’t heard “Blame It On Bad Luck” or “Devotion and Desire” - which were the closing songs for the night.

I could talk about night two, but I was having too much fun angry finger pointing and losing my voice to a bunch of my favorite songs to remember too many details. However, they did play one of the best b-sides, “Indiana”, and that will be something I never forget.