New Found Glory
The Franklin Theatre 03/10/23
Franklin TN
Morgan C. Insomnia Photographer
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Live Review
On March 10th, in the very crisp Tennessee air, The Franklin Theatre opened its doors for the beginning of the second leg of the Make The Most Of It Acoustic Tour. Guests filled into the historic theater browsing merch and buying coffee from the bands travel barista. Yes, you read that right, New Found Glory brought their own barista, where they were selling cups of joe, as well as exclusive ‘My Brew Over You’ coffee beans and stickers.
In the wake of Chad Gilbert’s cancer diagnosis, the band wrote 7 new songs, which are filled with what it means to grieve, to live and really appreciate life every day. The album Make The Most Of It was released January 20th of this year. The band has donated a portion of the sales to The Pheo Para Alliance, which is the longest standing internationally recognized leader in advocacy for, and awareness of pheochromocytoma.
Twenty five minutes after 8 PM, Leanna Firestone takes the stage with her acoustic guitar dressed in a gorgeous, Nashville iconic pink cowboy hat and matching pink pants.
After her first song about high school memories, she has a short monologue about being sad. Even though she may not look like she has ever been sad, she has had those thoughts about not wanting to live anymore, which is a very familiar feeling for many people. In the middle of her set, she asks the crowd to make a lot of noise as if New Found Glory was coming on stage so she could switch guitars. After many songs of love and suicide, she ends her set with a very upbeat song, ‘Smitten’. The crowd was overjoyed with the Tennessee Pop native performance that set the tone for what was the come next. Leanna has an EP called ‘Public Display of Affection’ which is available now on all streaming platforms. Her EP features songs like ‘Love of my Life’ and ‘You Just Don’t Like Me That Much’.
As the transition between acts happen, more guests file into the theater. They start filling seats and the standing area where it becomes a full house just under 400 in attendance. While we waited for NFG to take the stage, the room started talking about nostalgic memories. Finally, the time had come and they entered the room on the stage. To kick off their performance, they were tugging at the heartstrings of everyone with ’Get Me Home’. The band then proceeds to cover Christina Perri’s song ‘A Thousand Years’. While performing this song, you can feel a shift in the room where it really seems to hit home with the band and fans making them teary eyed.
Dan from ‘Four Years Strong’ joins the band on stage, where they announce he will be joining them the rest of the tour. Before continuing the show, Chad talks about his diagnosis and the raffle for the night. The raffle winner would receive a guitar at the end of the night and all raffle proceeds will be going directly to The Pheo Para Alliance. Once the details were announced, the show continued! With back to back classic pop punk anthems, the crowd never missed a beat with singing along. Hearing the crowd randomly shout, “I love you, Chad”, “beat that cancer”, you just knew how much love and support Chad and NFG has always had. The set ended with such energy that it felt as if New Found Glory could play throughout the night. Some might say it was the coffee, but I think it was the pure adrenaline rush of being back on the road for this tour. I think we can say this for all the “elder emo’s” out there, we couldn’t be more excited to see NFG back on the road with new music.
Set List
Get Me Home
Hit or Miss
Understatement
A Thousand Years (Christina Perri cover)
Mouth to Mouth
My Friends Over You
Reasons
All Downhill From Here
Too Good to Be
It's Not Your Fault
More Than Enough
The Story So Far (False start)
No News Is Good News
Dressed to Kill
Ready & Willing
Iris (The Goo Goo Dolls cover)
Encore:
Broken Sound
Sonny
I Don't Wanna Know
I'll Be (Edwin McCain cover)
Dream Born Again
