Scene kids new and old lined up outside The Danforth Music Hall on April 11th to experience a formative album in the subculture. The Academy Is…‘s debut studio release Almost Here solidified the band as Fueled by Ramen legends back in 2005 and with Toronto being their second date on this tour, the celebration had only started at this point. Complimented by the release of their newest album at the end of March called Almost There, it’s normal to feel that this tour is like a closing of one chapter and the start of a new one. The North American tour stretches all the way to San Diego on May 9th and after a short break, the band sees the finish line in Mexico City on the 23rd.
For a 20th-anniversary celebration of Almost Here, it felt right that the opener was Detroit’s own noveltysongs led by the creative force of Tyler Common (of Common Revolt fame). Joining TAI in two dates of the tour (the second being in Buffalo the night before), the 4 hour drive from Toronto to Detroit isn’t too bad though it’s hard to say the same about the parking ticket they apparently got in the city. More importantly though, The Academy Is…, as Tyler tells the crowd, was his first live music experience when he was 8 years old so you can imagine how much of a full circle moment this was for him and how awesome for TAI to invite them down knowing their influence.
noveltysongs has a really feel-good rock sound driven live by a 5 piece band. They brought a blend of emotional songwriting and indie-leaning textures that felt genuinely personal, and really invited the crowd to something a little more understated before the night fully exploded into mid-2000s nostalgia. There was a John Mellencamp-like looseness and sincerity to the set and the sound of the band that made it stand apart from the pop-punk energy waiting later in the evening, and that contrast worked in their favour. As an opener, the project functioned less as a hype machine and more as a gradual runway into the night. A great kickoff before what everyone came to see.
The band from Chicago was prefaced with a sort of radio transmission intro that felt like a subliminal time machine blasting and blending tracks like 3OH!3’s Richman (that rose to viral fame recently and got the crowd fired up), Inner Circle’s Bad Boys theme, and also Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town. You can’t help but feel there’s a cheeky message underneath there. Either way and amidst the theatrics though, this headlining setlist still operated less like a nostalgia trip and more like a curated museum tour through The Academy Is…’ whole identity. It begins in the exact place longtime fans would want with Almost Here and then keeps widening the lens, folding in 2007’s Santi, 2008’s Fast Times at Barrington High, and the 2026 comeback record Almost There as a companion of sorts to the debut. It really gives the night a clear emotional arc with beginnings, growth, reunion, and of course, the return.
The opening run was basically a victory lap for Almost Here. Starting with Attention and Season (complete with a megaphone fueled pre-chorus courtesy of vocalist William Beckett), then moving into Slow Down, The Phrase That Pays, and Black Mamba, the band front-loaded the songs that reminded a lot of people in the crowd what hooked them into this sound and of course, this album. Slow Down and The Phrase That Pays are the obvious early singalongs, while Checkmarks later in the set also carries some real weight as one of the album’s singles. Classifieds then had the entire Toronto crowd jumping at William’s command after Skeptics and True Believers took everyone’s guard down right before it. The album was proving to be an even more of an emotional roller coaster live.
From there, you might want to assume that giving time to later songs like Down and Out and the title track Almost Here rather than just playing the “hits” is what’s happening but actually, it’s easy to argue the whole album is a no-skip one. If anything, that ending stretch might be the emotional core of the show too, with Almost Here positioned as the kind of title-track payoff that would land hardest with the room full of people who grew up with the record especially with it’s epic ending.
Unlike most “front-to back” album tours though, The Academy Is… makes things interesting by weaving newer tracks in-and-out of the Almost Here set, instead of just playing it all the way through and a “Part Two” of sorts afterwards. It really makes for an interesting pacing in how this starts to break the debut-album spell just enough to keep the set moving and sets aside time for the band to chat with the crowd. At one point, William even turns to bassist and co-founder Adam Siska when the last time they played in Toronto was, and it must’ve felt like an extra special night for a lot of fans to hear that it’s been 16 years.
The first shift off the album setlist was after Black Mamba and into About a Girl. It’s the first unmistakable late-era crossover moment from Fast Times at Barrington High and it is one of the band’s biggest mainstream songs having been released as that album’s first single and later going gold in the U.S. as well. Then taking a step back in time, Sleeping With Giants (Lifetime) (that included a crazy drum section from Andy “The Butcher” Mrotek), Neighbors, and Seed pulled the crowd into the Santi era, which gives the set a sharper and more polished midsection and nods to one of the band’s highly-anticipated records. Then Miracle and 2005 was sandwiched it all as clear new contenders but also linked the show into the reunion era with both being from Almost There, the band’s first album in 18 years. 2005 arrived as that album’s first single, making it one of the biggest “new song” moments of the night by default. A fan favourite Rumored Nights then jumps back to Fast Times, creating a nice late-set crossfade between the band’s past and present with the last 3 songs of the debut capping off the main set.
After all of this back and forth across TAI’s discography, a moody smoke on stage leads to an encore that read like a second chapter rather than a cooldown. A recording of Floating Through Time (Interlude) is the kind of bridge that signals a reset into the new album era, and L Train right after reinforces that being another Almost There track. But then, LAX to O’Hare (another “travel-related title” as per William) and We’ve Got a Big Mess on Our Hands snapped the crowd back to the early Santi years again where the nostalgia might’ve really sharpened for a lot of hardcore fans. Here’s the band showing love to records that helped get them where they are once again. Ending with After the Last Midtown Show after that is a perfect closing statement as it sent the night out on a somber fan-favorite late-era track while still keeping the emotional thread tied to the band’s history. The overall effect is of a reunion show that understands its own timeline and uses it well especially calling back to the debut with the lyrics “Almost Here” in this ending track. With that said, here’s to hoping the band gets to where it wants to go from here with their comeback album and finally get there, wherever they want there to be.
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