In the Middle of the Ride: Jimmy Eat World Bleeds American at 25
When I was seventeen, I got dumped. It was so melodramatic. Begging. Sobbing. Total devastation. I look back on it now and think Surely, I would never cry in front of that many people! But it wasn’t my fault! I had a lot to feel. Maybe not for the relationship itself, a relationship that was only six months old, but maybe for the idea of a relationship. An idea that had been planted in me since I was ten years old and my mom bought me my own 5-disc CD changer stereo for my birthday. It had a dual tape deck so I could make my own mix-tapes. It was the best gift ever! That is when I started to learn what it was like to feel things that I had no right to feel, let alone understand. For seven years I had been prepped by the casual disregard of Nirvana, the unrelatable poetry of 2pac, and the beautified suffering of Boyz II Men. Little did I know, they were all training wheels for the emotional surge of Jimmy Eat World.
Teenage me needed Bleed American. How else was I to know that “things are never going to be the way you want” and that “even if [her] heart would listen, I doubt I could explain?” Jimmy Eat World was more than great music, it was an entirely new experience. And I dove in headfirst. I started downloading everything I could find. In fact, the first time I ever heard Last Christmas was a cover by Jimmy Eat World. The thing is, I didn’t know it was a cover, and on top of that, I didn’t know it was a Christmas song at all! (Sorry, George Michael!) I just thought I had discovered some underground single that nobody else knew about. And I loved it along with all the rest. Through Jimmy Eat World, I found Dashboard Confessional, Brand New, and The Get Up Kids. It was music that seemed to know how I felt before I did.
Fast forward twenty-five years, and I am standing at the stage, waiting for Jimmy Eat World to play the 25th anniversary tour of Bleed American. I’m imagining teenage me getting to stand feet away from this band as they perform every single song from my favorite album and more. I was nervous and excited, hoping my hopes weren’t too high. I expected a lot—maybe too much. I expected everything I had ever felt more than twenty years before and then some.
Jimmy Eat World delivered.
Every song was played with the appreciation of an artist who knows it’s more than a song. From the suctioning rhythm of Your New Aesthetic to the crowd screaming “salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt,” to the naked exposure of Your House and the dueling guitars in Get It Faster—the mood ran the gamut. And just like I was driving through the Sierra Nevadas with a car full of my closest friends, we knew every word as all the feelings we had known swept across the room like an avalanche.
Between songs, Jim Adkins entertained the crowd in his knowingly awkward way, even saying, “I’ve never understood why anybody gives me the microphone.” But that’s what fans love about the band: the sincerity. There was never the glimpse of entitlement or prima donna, just a band sincerely grateful for the fans that have allowed them to share so much of themselves for so long. That was what Jim had to say more than anything else. It was a testament to the ingenuousness of Hear You Me.
By the time they were done, my throat was sore, I had given myself whiplash, and I was soaked in sweat. And though nobody noticed, I even cried in front of more people than I did at seventeen, albeit less hysterical. It was everything I hoped it would be.
To this day, you can’t help but hear The Middle and root for that little girl stuck in the ride. Life is like that—a series of luring attractions that begin and end, bore, disgust, terrify, and exhilarate. Jimmy Eat World has written about it all—here’s to another twenty-five years of Bleed American.