Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World performs Oct. 13 at the Newport Music Hall. Credit: Emily Yarcusko / For The Lantern
Nineties era legends met Columbus in “The Middle” on Monday evening.
The middle of High Street, that is.
Jimmy Eat World performed at Newport Music Hall with minibosses and reminded everyone in attendance why they have been around for more than 20 years now.
Marking the 10-year anniversary of the album “Futures,” Jimmy Eat World played mostly songs from the album.
They started the show off with “Kill,” “Drugs or Me” and “Polaris,” among others. I arrived at the show expecting to hear more songs I would recognize, such as “The Middle” (which the band did not play), but I was not disappointed by the set list.
“I have probably listened to their music for 10 years,” said Ariella Feldman, a first-year food science graduate student at Ohio State. “It’s the first concert I’ve ever been to, so I’m excited it’s them.”
Feldman first heard of Jimmy Eat World while watching “One Tree Hill” and has been a fan ever since. She, a self-proclaimed “huge” fan, even came by herself to the concert because she could not find anyone else to go with and didn’t want to miss the show.
For an opening set, minibosses played Nintendo music. The band did a great job of warming up the crowd with familiar sounding tunes from old favorites like Super Mario Bros. and other childhood video game favorites remastered.
The crowd went wild at one point as guitarist/bassist Robin Vining’s strap came undone, and he knelt down to keep playing the song. The second duel bass and guitar player, Aaron Burke, came over and re-hooked his strap for him so he could stand up without missing a note and created a surge of excitement from viewers.
The two groups seemed to have a great relationship, Zach Lind and Rick Burch from Jimmy Eat World even came out during the minibosses set to play a song with the opening band.
The group had opened for Jimmy Eat World at a press show in Los Angeles a number of years ago and were excited to be asked back for the tour. Of the past 11 shows for minibosses, they have played 9 opening for Jimmy Eat World.
I was lucky enough to get an interview backstage with minibosses after the show.
“It’s so awesome they asked us to do this tour,” said Burke, one of two original group members still playing together today.
Vining has never opened for them before this tour, as he joined the group later, but recalled seeing Jimmy Eat World play in Arizona, where he grew up.
“It was cool they were one of the bands that were just playing out of local clubs like we were and then they got signed,” he said.
This Newport show marks the first performance in Columbus for all of the minibosses.
“This town has been incredible,” minibosses drummer Matt Wood said.
Jimmy Eat World was cheered on for an encore where they played Bleed American, My Best Theory, and Sweetness. The crowd went crazy, clapping their hands and bouncing up and down with the drums.
Correction: A prior version of this article stated that Jimmy Eat World did not perform “23” at its performance in the Newport Monday evening. In fact, the band did perform “23.”
