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My name is Tanner and here I post stories, reflections, poems, and prayers.
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Before you begin reading …
This is a piece I couldn’t help but write. Perhaps I wrote this for myself. It’s not like most of the things I share on Substack, but I am not a brand - I am a writer.
Hope you enjoy!
Truth of My Youth
It had been years since I last saw a mohawk, but there it was, right in front of me. A thirty-something-year-old sporting it with punk rock pride, as he made his way through the crowd like a shark in the water. I stood at the center back of a packed concert venue, surrounded by a sea of people all seemingly in their mid-thirties—the ones who remember life before cell phones, who lived through 9/11, who had a MySpace, and who used to hit the mall on Friday nights to buy physical CDs with paper money.
Tonight, pop-punk legends New Found Glory were celebrating the 20th anniversary of their album Catalyst. While it might not be their most famous album, it’s one I can’t live without. Two decades later, it still lights up my soul, transporting me back to the teenager who was trying to find his way in the world.
I remember the day I bought the album.
It was the summer of 2004 when my mom took my brother and me to the Altamonte Mall for back-to-school shopping. I was about to start my freshman year of high school—a time when angst-filled pop-punk music was a necessity. After mowing a lawn or two, I had enough money to buy a copy of Catalyst from either FYE or Best Buy. I can’t remember the exact store, but I do remember the moment I first listened to the album.
After using my teeth to tear off the impossible shrink wrap and rip the disc from its plastic square home, I carefully placed it into my Sony Discman where it would live for months to come. In the back seat of my mom’s Ford Expedition I was forever changed.
I held the discman just right to keep it from skipping. Music flooded my ears as I stared out the window. Cars passed as my veins filled with lyrics. My puberty-ridden body felt peace as the melodies washed over me. My toes tapped to the rhythm as my thumb and pointer finger pretended to hold a pick as I strummed my air guitar. Track after track my young mind was being shaped, molded into what the music embodied: resilient, hopeful, and emotional.
And when the last song finished, we started again from the beginning.Â
All Downhill From Here was added to every burned CD I made in high school. Truth of My Youth has been on repeat since the album was released. I’ve listened to it 13 ½ times while writing this piece. Failure’s Not Flattering was the first song to play on my iPod after a girl broke up with me during the summer of 2011. At Least I’m Known for Something blew out one of my speakers in my pick-up truck while in college, something I don’t regret.Â
New Found Glory was one of the first bands I followed. This album, along with Sticks and Stones, has been the soundtrack to every season of my life. The ups and downs, Thursdays and Februarys, long days and sleepless nights. As I write this, Catalyst is in my car’s CD player, the anthem for grocery runs and appointments, keeping me going as I navigate through life.
In some strange way, New Found Glory helped raise me, being the steady soundtrack for season after season. There is something special about their words and sound that has grabbed a hold of me.Â
I can’t explain it.
I want to explain it, but I can’t.
Not all gifts from God can be explained, they can only be received and cherished.
I feel connected to this band.
And that’s why I saw a mohawk for the first time in years.
Tonight, fans weren’t being dropped off by their parents anymore; they were leaving their own children at home to relive the album that helped shape them. Babysitters across the city were making bank as parents made new memories. The parking lot was filled with minivans, while the venue was packed with feet in Vans and Dr. Scholl’s inserts.
We grow up, but we don’t grow old.
The concert hall was filled wall to wall with nostalgia and anticipation. Warped Tour veterans dressed in all black, showing off the tattoos they hide at their 9-to-5. Everywhere you looked was a different band t-shirt. Yellowcard. The Ataris. Blink-182. The Starting Line. Taylor Swift. She is everywhere. If you looked around the room you could see sciatic nerves acting up, knees aching, but hearts rejoicing. The band played, and we sang every word as if it were a Sunday morning at church. Track after track, the weight of the week lifted from our shoulders. It was like group therapy for hopeful misfits escaping another night on the couch, wondering if everything would be okay. And for that evening, we were lost in the music, knowing everything would be okay. For one night, we didn’t think about work, bills, diagnoses, to-do lists, or what awaited us when the house lights came on. We might have been too old to mosh, but we were forever young at heart, raising our fists in the air, a sign that we were still here.
And what a gift it is to still be here.
Twenty years ago, we were driving around in our hand-me-down cars—dented and busted, but still going, just like us. We’d put the album in the CD player, put the car in drive, and crank up the volume as loud as it would go, though it never felt loud enough. That’s how pop-punk music works. It can never be loud enough. Steering wheels became drum sets as we gave the streets we grew up on a show. We memorized the lyrics, tattooing them onto our hearts, souls, and minds. We lost ourselves in the music as we found our way in the world. Every word was belted as we lifted our hands to the sky, pushing back against a world that tried to crush us.
This wasn’t just music.
This was therapy before therapy.Â
This is the music that carried us through breakups, lonely Friday nights, and family matters.Â
This is the music that carried us through high school, college, and into today.Â
This is the music that carried us through puberty, depression, and anxiety.Â
This is the music that carried us through changes, transitions, steps back, steps forward, joy, and sorrow.Â
This is the music that carried us through miscarriages, unwanted answers, deaths, divorces, life’s questions, and frustrations.
This is the music that met us where we were and helped us continue forward.Â
This is what art does.
Music. Poetry. Painting. Stories. Film.
It is a gift that meets others where they are and helps them continue forward.Â
New Found Glory found a way to simultaneously narrate and comfort my emotions. They put into words how I felt at age 14, 19, 23, 27, 30, and soon 35. They gave my heart, mind, and soul rest when the weight of the world felt heavy. They slowed me down, and in some mysterious way, drew me closer to God. I have to believe that putting into words how someone feels is a gift of mercy. Helping others believe that they are seen, loved, and not alone. To give comfort and encouragement to others as they take another step forward.
What a love.
What a mercy.
What a new found glory.Â
With hope,
Tanner 🤘
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This is epic. I'm so glad that you got to have and share this experience.
(Also me : reads the title of this post before opening it, thinking "Truth of My Youth" would be a great song title, forgetting that it actually is a NFG song 😂🤘)
I read this through a film of tears. Why?
It is RICH: humorous, nostalgic and celebratory. 🙌