Pierce the Veil

One Liner: Screamy emo post hardcore freakout music
Wikipedia Genre: Post hardcore, pop-punk, experimental rock, emo, progressive rock
Home: San Diego

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 2
Day: Saturday
Weekend Two Only.

T-Mobile Stage at 6:15.

Thoughts: I just laughed out loud when the first track started.  This has never been on my radar, and likely for good reason, as my wife would have filed for divorce long ago if I had played their most popular song anywhere near her earholes.  I am also intrigued by the fact that this is one of the bigger rock acts on the poster this year, and yet I've never heard a single one of these songs.

Okay.  You just have to hear this first song.  I just laughed out loud again.  "King for a Day" somehow has 535.5 million streams.  And I sincerely doubt it was from TikTok videos.

Like Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance and The Used got together to try to make a song without planning beforehand.  And I like some hard rock, but you almost always lose me when the screamo crap starts in.  Because portions of that song are good enough, but not the whole thing at all.  I'm feeling that repeatedly as I listen to these guys - like, "oooh, that riff was sweet!" or "that drum fill was legit," but the overall package is not good for me.

The band was formed in 2006 by two brothers, Vic and Mike Fuentes, who had previously been in San Diego punk band Before Today (which had previously been known as Early Times).  The brothers released their first album in 2007, and then not long after that they added a bassist and lead guitarist.  Interesting that they have been around for so long.  The band name apparently came from a line in a song by their old band.  I was kind of hoping that one of them was a recovering lawyer who knew about piercing the corporate veil to get at the assets of bad actors using the corporate form to shield assets.  The first album has a much more emo rock, pop-punk sound.  The top song on that disc is the unfortunately named "Yeah Boy and Doll Face," with 40.9 million streams.

Like a slightly less poppy Fall Out Boy, maybe.  I've really never gotten into this little sub-genre of post hardcore stuff very much, so all of my references are going to be the mainstream ones like FOB and MCR.  Like, every band talked about in their Wikipedia - the bands they toured with or collaborated with or whatever - are things I have never heard of like Emmure, or Chiodos, or Mayday Parade, or A Day to Remember, or August Burns Red.  I am outside of my zone.  

The second album has bigger stream counts, with the hit being "Caraphernelia" at 163.4 million streams.

Got the cookie monster screaming going in there, so I guess they reached their form by now.  I looked it up to see if this was a real word, but it is not: ""Caraphernelia" is a term coined by the band Pierce the Veil to describe a broken-heart condition where a person leaves, but leaves behind their belongings, causing painful memories and heartbreak. It's a combination of the name "Cara" (possibly referencing someone the band member knew) and "paraphernalia". "  Again, some cool aspects to that song, which are ruined by some other aspects of that song.

2012's Collide With the Sky is their peak - half of their most popular songs are on this disc.  Including the main hit up above, but also several others with over 100 million streams.  To show just how out of the loop I am, after this album and their touring with it, they won nine categories of the 2012 reader's poll conducted by Alternative Press, including Best Live Band of the Year, Album of the Year, and Artists of the Year.  Fascinating.  2016's Misadventures appears to have been less popular, at least from stream count.  Funny thing, I might like it better than some of the screamier ones from before.  Also around now, the drummer was accused of soliciting nude photos from some minor young ladies, as well as statutory rape, and he decided to leave the band to "concentrate on his personal life."  The band claimed to be working on new music in 2018, but it looks like they took a little break until their 2023 album Jaws of Life.

The top song from that recent disc is called "Pass The Nirvana" with 83.4 million streams, and I think I like it.

Oh, that Pennywise girl is not good news.  I don't understand how that fella doesn't shred his voice, it is truly interesting how he can sing with a clean voice one line and Satan's disembodied shriek the next.  But even with the screaming, the groove of that tune caught me up.  That is their best album for sure - they went with a more tuneful and streamlined sound.  The intro song definitely reminds me of My Chemical Romance.  Still has some screaming, but it is significantly less than the older discs.

Luckily this is weekend two, so I won't even have to worry about whether to line up for The Strokes or go watch this happen.  If you go, I would honestly love to hear what you thought.