Live Shows: Everyone Asked About You and Death Party, The Sinclair, April 14, 2025

Everyone Asked About You had their first run back from 1996-2000, and recently reunited and released new music. I have vague memories of them from my college radio days, before I knew that emo was an entire genre. Their reissued albums reminded me of them and I became somewhat obsessed, and was thrilled when they were added to a Ted Leo & The Pharmacists show back in 2023. As soon as I saw that they were coming back for a headlining show at The Sinclair, I desperately wanted in.

When a smaller band from the 90's reunites, it's typically the OG fans that show up with some gray in their hair, if they're lucky enough to still have hair to turn gray. I'm not quite sure what happened in the past few years, but Monday night's crowd was one of the youngest I've been in for at least a few years. X's were on many a hand, but the kids did bring an energy to the show that the over forty crowd rarely can these days.

With a band like Everyone Asked About You, it's easy to forget just how many great songs they have. Opening with "Song About Chris," it was banger after banger after banger. (Do the kids still say "banger?") "A Better Way to a Broken Heart?" "Letters Never Sent?" "Taxi?" "Me vs You?" All instant classics that the crowd exploded for. The band played a much tighter set than they did in 2023, but it still had just enough looseness to make it great. As I said back then, there's just something magical about when Hannah Vogen and Chris Sheppard vocalize together, and those moments were the highlight of the show for me. 

I also didn't realize that Sheppard had so many ties to Massachusetts. Currently living in the Boston area, he mentioned that the Cape saved his life in 2020, which I completely get. It might not be enough to be able to claim them away from Little Rock, but they're at least an honorary Boston band.

Opening the show was Death Party. They're an "emo-adjacent" band that defies the typical guitar/bass/drums model by substituting a vibraphone for a guitar. It was a strange sound at first, but after a song or two you adjust to it, and by the fourth you absolutely love it. They may just be the heaviest band to ever use a vibraphone, and after playing a song inspired by Gilmore Girls, they got dark with songs about their deceased friend. (The band gets their name from a party thrown after the friend's passing.) Not the cheeriest set of the year, but they are an emotionally powerful band I'm looking to hear more from in the future.