Motion City Soundtrack & Say Anything Bring Nostalgia Roaring Back to Life
- LJ Portnoy
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
Article contributed by Mark Portnoy & LJ Portnoy, Photography by LJ Portnoy
Arrival at the Fillmore
The Fillmore Detroit has a way of making every show feel larger than itself, and on February 10, it became the gathering place for fans of Motion City Soundtrack, many of whom had carried these songs with them for years. Its towering ceilings and ornate gold detailing framed the room with a sense of permanence, a reminder that countless performances had lived and ended within those same walls. When we arrived around 6:30PM, a midsized line still lingered outside, slowly feeding into the venue. Doors had opened at 6, and people continued filtering in from the cold, drawn to the warmth waiting inside, like moths to a flame.
Inside, the coat check line curled in on itself, a slow-moving ritual of winter survival. Heavy coats, scarves, and gloves were handed over in exchange for numbered tickets and the quiet understanding that the night ahead would require freedom of movement. Around us, anticipation filled the room. Conversations overlapped as people compared past shows, speculated about set lists, and settled into place. For many, this wasn’t just another Tuesday night. It was a return.
Sincere Engineer Sets the Foundation
By the time Sincere Engineer stepped on stage just before 7 PM, the crowd was attentive but restrained, easing into the night rather than rushing it. The Chicago punk band brought a sound that was both gritty and precise, anchored by front-woman Deanna Belos’ raw, textured vocals. Her delivery carried weight, balancing emotional intensity with sharp lyrical clarity. Their performance felt restless in the best way, intricate and unpolished by design. The audience responded with quiet engagement, nodding along, absorbing the energy without fully releasing it yet. It was the kind of opening set that didn’t demand attention so much as earn it.
Say Anything Ignites the Room
Say Anything shifted that dynamic almost immediately. As the band took the stage beneath saturated washes of deep blues, purples, and bursts of red and orange, the crowd responded with recognition rather than hesitation. Frontman Max Bemis moved with the ease of someone who had spent decades living inside these songs. Formed in 2000, Say Anything carved their place in indie and emo rock through deeply personal songwriting and emotionally charged performances, with Bemis serving as the band’s creative and emotional center. Their sound has always blurred the line between chaos and control, and that balance was evident throughout the set.
The performance felt polished, confident, and fully realized. Every vocal landed cleanly. Every instrumental layer felt intentional. Around the room, the crowd loosened, voices growing louder as people sang along without hesitation. What began as observation had turned into participation. The emotional distance between stage and audience was beginning to dissolve.
Motion City Soundtrack Brings It Home
Then Motion City Soundtrack arrived, and whatever restraint remained vanished instantly.
The moment they stepped into view, the room erupted, cheers echoing upward toward the Fillmore’s high ceilings. Purple and blue light washed over the band, familiar and fitting, casting their silhouettes in colors that felt inseparable from their sound. Formed in Minneapolis in 1997, Motion City Soundtrack has spent nearly three decades shaping a voice defined by vulnerability, urgency, and emotional precision. Frontman Justin Pierre, alongside guitarist Joshua Cain, bassist Matt Taylor, keyboardist Jesse Johnson, and drummer Tony Thaxton, brought that voice to life with a presence that felt both grounded and electric.
What has always set Motion City Soundtrack apart is their ability to transform internal chaos into something melodic and communal. Pierre’s vocals carried the same anxious honesty that defined the band’s earliest releases, while Johnson’s synthesizer threaded through each song, adding texture and movement that elevated the sound beyond genre conventions. Their music didn’t just fill the space. It moved through it.
The crowd responded instinctively. People sang toward the stage as much as along with it, their voices overlapping, uneven but unified. Each song felt less like a performance and more like a shared memory being reactivated in real time. The energy built steadily, feeding off itself, amplifying with every chorus.
A Night Suspended in Memory
By the end of the night, the Fillmore felt transformed. The anticipation that had defined the early evening had given way to something more complete. Release. Connection. Recognition.
Three bands had taken the stage, each adding their own voice to the night’s progression, but Motion City Soundtrack carried the emotional center. Their performance wasn’t just heard. It was felt, fully and collectively.
For a few hours, inside those historic walls, the past and present existed in the same place, carried forward on sound, memory, and the quiet understanding that some songs never really leave us.
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