Alt-rock festival When We Were Young attracted an audience of around 60,000 in Las Vegas this weekend, despite weeks of controversy leading up to the event.
2024 marks the third year of When We Were Young, but this time, with a new concept. This year, bands were set to do full album playthroughs of their most iconic, retro work. Playing full albums on tour has been a sort of trend as of late, including pop-punk bands like Bowling For Soup touring this year with 2004’s A Hangover You Don’t Deserve and Green Day cramming both 1994’s Dookie and 2004’s American Idiot into the massive “Saviors” tour. When We Were Young is capitalizing on this, primarily with headliner My Chemical Romance performing their classic 2006 album, The Black Parade.
Despite the hype around hearing the iconic albums of bands like My Chemical Romance, Pierce the Veil, and Jimmy Eat World, When We Were Young 2024 garnered criticism for the decision.
The All-American Rejects made headlines as they pulled out of the festival stating, “There has been a management change within the WWWY operation, and they are no longer able to accommodate us in the previously agreed upon line-up, which has made it impossible for us to continue.”
The band was originally slated to play the entirety of their 2002 self-titled album.
In addition to this, the festival has continued to be scrutinized for its lack of female representation. Loudwire reports only 5 bands of the 50-band lineup include female members. This is a tough pill to swallow, as it falls right in line with pop-punk festivals such as Warped Tour’s history of misogyny. Modern pop-punk-inspired artist Scene Queen took to X to air out her discomforts with the lack of representation and provide a hefty list of bands that could fit the bill.
In spite of these criticisms, the festival saw a successful turnout, with fans flocking to see their favorite alt-rock artists over the two-day event.
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