I forgot about The Wonder Years touring with A Loss For Words and Energy at the Green Turtle in Whittier, CA. I wanna say TWY only had Get Stoked and maybe the EP out at the time, but they never played their set because one of the 4 or 5 locals had a brawl break out during their set.
For real, dude. I remember they would play up here in Albany pretty frequently around that time too except I was too young to go to shows by myself at the time haha
I missed a lot of shows in the 2002-2003 era. That was my senior year of high school and I played baseball and worked, so pretty much every night I had other obligations other than seeing shows. Only saw a few shows that year. But I do recall my friends seeing Northstar, TBS, MCR and Yellowcard (not all together) all in pretty small venues around the time.
First and only time I'd been there. About halfway through the second or third band's set, some big dudes start pummeling a kid and stomping him; TWY's merch guy came flying off of the bar with a Macho Man elbow drop onto some guy to get him off of the kid and everyone bailed out. Whittier PD was called and I think TWY ended up playing in some kid's backyard nearby.
The first show was at Kobo, opening for Phantods, who I loved. The second was at Skully's opening for The Wet Darlings
I saw that same Family Values tour in 2001 and, even by that point, Hybrid Theory was all over place and a couple time splatform.
One more I'll throw in. Saw Acceptance headlining tour in fall 2005 with The Receiving End Of Sirens, Cartel, Augustana and a unknown band named Paramore opening.
I was at the first date of the entire tour (Cleveland). Like I said, Linkin Park was definitely known at that point but In The End (which was the biggest single off HT) hadn't been released yet and they weren't like a household name at that point, they were third on the bill behind STP (headliner) and Staind (direct support). People knew One Step Closer and Crawling but I don't think anyone at that point of time thought they'd turn into mega superstars selling out arenas for the rest of their career.
I saw Energy open for Four Year Strong and Set Your Goals in 2008. Good show, but the singer wasn't even trying to hide his attempt to be Davey Havok.
Biggest one is PVRIS. Knew about them through a friend back when they were a metalcore band. Direct Hit played at a bar in my tiny town of 9,000 people back before they were signed, granted I think they still play bar shows so. Saw Mayday Parade at the Shelter in Detroit. They were co-headlining with Madina Lake and We the Kings were the OPENING band. Weird but awesome show.
Hm probably seeing Pierce The Veil open for Scary Kids Scaring Kids in 2007 at The Station in Portland, ME. Also saw All Time Low open for Cute Is What We Aim For in 2007 at the Station. Underoath opening for Thrice in 2005, again at the Station.
Saw Mayday Parade and Pierce The Veil open for Emery in 2008 at State Theatre. Our Last Night open for Scary Kids Scaring Kids and Finch at State Theatre. Sleeping With Sirens open for Enter Shikari at the old Orphuem.
I saw The Front Bottoms open for Bad Books in a ~150 cap room, they then headlined the same room at some point that year I think and then the next time they came to town had jumped to the ~900 cap room around the corner.
This thread made me feel very young, haha. The only one I can think of is that I saw La Dispute play in a garage in Bridgeport, MI in like 2008? It was right after Somewhere at the Bottom came out. I passed up on buying Vancouver on vinyl at the show, which I regret forever because that is worth some serious money now even though the album sucks. I saw them in a lot of weird, tiny "venues" in 08/09. I also saw the Swellers play a bunch of tiny bar shows, but I'm not sure that they count as "got popular later."
I saw Hot Chelle Rae open up for Sherwood in 2009 at a tiny club in Orlando to about 50 people. They would later go on to have a triple platinum single, "Tonight Tonight"
I've been "rediscovering" that band this week actually. They were so, so bad but I love it so, so much
Not necessarily global superstars, but I saw Slaves (the UK duo, not the one with Jonny Craig) in a fairly small venue in Norwich with a mostly dead crowd a few weeks before they released "Hey" and appeared on Jools Holland and absolutely exploded in popularity.
I was hoping I’d forget about that band for good... Also, whatever happened to them? My sister (and unfortunately, my mom) were OBSESSED with that song when it came out and played it all the time. I thought they were gonna be extra huge
My parents took me to see Yellowcard once before they got huge (I was like 13 years old) On the same track, I also saw Katy Perry sing backup vocals for Yellowcard once in 2007