I saw JEW open for Weezer in the Winter of 2001 and at that point, I had never heard of them. I don't think at that point in time, I had ever heard The Middle but I distinctly remember The Middle being all over the place that following summer (2002).
"The Middle" was definitely the first song I heard of them. But I was also in fourth grade at the time and not super conscious of anything not getting a ton of play on mainstream radio. Heard a cover band play it at a bar last weekend. It's definitely in the canon of karaoke/wedding/bar band classics now. "The Middle" was a legit song of the summer candidate in 2002.
Bleed American came out right before I became a senior in high school, and I vividly recall hearing the title track all over the local radio station bc blink was massively popular at that time, and Tom was pushing them hard, so of course that’s why I bought the record 18 years ago this week! From what I can remember, “The Middle” came out sometime in the fall and began a pretty rapid climb, and the song became ubiquitous by January. I have fond memories of watching the video and being upset I couldn’t jump into a pool in my skivvies at the time of the year, lol. I also have a random memory of my friend telling me “The Middle” will be a massive hit song in the car before the song was officially released as a single and thinking he had some Billboard charts from the future like Biff and the sports book in BTTF haha My friends and I listened to Bleed American a LOT, like every weekend; we each had our own favorite songs (mine was “Cautioners”), and it eventually turned me onto Clarity, which became the most-listened to summer album for my group of friends in 2002. And yes, “The Middle” was still popular at that time, but by the time I was graduating, “Sweetness” was out and getting lots of spins too.
Oh yeah, by then I was all in. I ran out and bought BA and Clarity shortly after that Weezer show and then saw JEW headline for the first time in July of 2002. By that point, they were playing decent-sized venues and selling them out.
I was a sophomore in high school when BA dropped. Damn. Damn damn damn. My sister’s boyfriend (now her husband) had burned my sister a copy of the album. I borrowed it just to check it out. Then I kept it. Definitely one of those game changer albums for me.
I can remember sitting in my older brother's on-campus apartment in college with him and all his friends playing original Xbox and "The Middle" coming on the radio and every single person in the room was fired up and loved the song. These are all people with wildly disparate tastes in music by-the-way. I feel like at that time, that song and "Sweetness" were EVERYWHERE.
A friend of mine texted me a screenshot of him listening to Futures this morning, and that was all it took for me to have been listening to their catalog all day.
So last night was the last night of the tour, right? Man, Zach must have been holding that in for a long time. Haha
haha wow I not surprised someone would think that about Stephen Jenkins, but the Jimmy Eat World members don't seem like the type to talk shit. He must have really wanted to get that off his chest.