Spirit Day with Mom Jeans in Silver Spring
BY ANNA PORCELLAThis Saturday, California based band Mom Jeans arrived at the Fillmore Silver Spring amongst a sea of neon orange for their “Loud Epic Emo Music” tour. The biggest tour of their career follows the November release of “Bear Market,” which is - in a contrast to the tour name - an acoustic album reworking songs from their discography. Joining them on this tour are indie rock bands Hunny and Summer Salt. In addition, the tour is also featuring appearances from several bands and artists in the scene for select dates. For Silver Spring, the audience was treated to a set from Maryland rock duo Origami Angel.
This tour, the band prompted “spirit days,” in which each night of the tour had its own theme for fans to participate in. Some of the themes included cowboy hat night in Austin, goth night in Philadelphia, and tie dye night in Tucson. For Silver Spring, the theme was hunter orange - the aforementioned neon orange was featured throughout the crowd in the bright tour t-shirts and carhartt beanies.
Despite being based out of California, Mom Jeans is often pinned as midwest-emo - a blend of emotional and introspective lyricism, strained or unconventional vocals, with influences from pop punk, indie rock, and post-harcore. The band brings a playful energy to the otherwise rather heavy-hearted genre, evident in song titles like “Shred Cruz” and “Pickle Bart,” both featured on the setlist. In between songs, audios from memes and vines play, as well as a voiceover poking fun at themselves - “one emo cliche after another emo cliche after another emo cliche.”
The crowd matches the band’s energy throughout the show, mosh pits and crowd surfing even to the saddest of songs on the setlist. Even during the encore, in which the band plays an unreleased song, the audience keeps up despite knowing none of the words. Throughout the evening, orange beanies were visible bouncing around in the pits while friends turned to each other to echo the lyrics at one another. Even while Mom Jeans carries themselves with humor, the emotion that resides in midwest emo has created a close-knit community among the fans.
