WHEN WE WERE YOUNG - By The Numbers
The WHEN WE WERE YOUNG festival admat burned up social media this week, even spawning multiple memes. Shoutout to Andy Serrao and everyone else involved with pulling it together. I can only imagine the mini-nightmare of multiple agents and managers each advocating for the respective acts, with undoubtedly a fair amount of “but we’re not a nostalgia band!” thrown around.
The excitement about WWWY is off the charts. It trended on Billboard; made waves with Rolling Stone; and crossed over to CNN and The New York Post.
It also raised uncomfortable questions, and unfavorable comparisons to Astroworld and even Fyre Fest, prompting a response from LiveNation.
I credit THE HELLA MEGA TOUR with opening our collective eyes to the idea that 1 + 1 + 1 can equal more than three. Who is “bigger,” GREEN DAY, FALL OUT BOY, or WEEZER? There’s plenty to debate and a lot of metrics to measure, but the end result of that triple-headlining bill was a larger tour than any of them ever did alone. The Hella Mega Tour averaged 33,000 tickets each night across its 20 shows — more than double the pace of Green Day’s previous peak (2005), and more than three times that of Fall Out Boy (2016) or Weezer (2002).
I was happy to see BLACK VEIL BRIDES, ICE NINE KILLS, and MOTIONLESS IN WHITE get in on the act, and I expect more bands in our world will follow. A co-headling tour is great, as MEGADETH/LAMB OF GOD and THE USED/TAKING BACK SUNDAY (among others) reminded us in recent years. But three bands? Four?
To be sure, When We Were Young’s bill looks similar to Warped Tour and other festivals in terms of the arrangement, historical significance, and thematic strength, but more egos than usual must’ve been left at the door to get it booked.
As I imagined the Admat Wars™️ that surely ensued regarding logo placements, I wondered where these bands stood by every metric except ticket sales, and I figured that you, dear reader, may have wondered the same. We all know there are plenty of ways to measure the “size” of a band; I’m not making any bold declarations here about, say, AFI vs. HorrorPops vs. Poppy. It’s just a bunch of information I find interesting, as we navigate the post-Soundscan era.
Every band is unique of course, but paying attention to where everyone stands in the ever-changing landscape is how we know what works, what doesn’t, and how to course-correct it when necessary. As I said on The Ex-Man Podcast with Doc Coyle, Eric German, and Mike Mowery, collecting data metrics for Hard Rock, Metal, and Punk(ish) music isn’t about egos for me. My interest (and I suspect, most of yours) is in keeping every single one of these bands in “this thing of ours” relevant, successful, working, and connecting with audiences.
What follows are RIAA certified album and single sales, Instagram followings, most-watched YouTube videos, biggest songs on Spotify, recent Spotify listenership, and recent monthly YouTube views for the nearly 70 artists playing When We Were Young in October, including AVRIL LAVIGNE, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, PARAMORE, BRING ME THE HORIZON, JIMMY EAT WORLD, A DAY TO REMEMBER, I PREVAIL, PIERCE THE VEIL, THE USED, and all the rest.
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