Review: Jimmy Eat World and Manchester Orchestra leave The Armory speechless

Everywhere emo music has been, Jimmy Eat World's been, too.

In the '90s, the Arizona-born band released split singles with post-hardcore acts like Christie Front Dive and Sense Field. In the '00s, they co-headlined with Warped Tour staples like Taking Back Sunday and Paramore. And in the '10s, they invited leaders of the emo revival like The Hotelier and Microwave as openers.

So it's fitting that now, 30 years into their life span, they finally share the stage with Manchester Orchestra, a veteran Atlanta-born act constantly blurring the lines between alt-rock, punk and pure cinema. On the co-headlining Amplified Echoes Tour stop at the Armory on Sunday night, Jimmy and Manchester Orchestra gave alt-rock fans everything they could possibly ask for.

In all-black attire, Jimmy Eat World arrived on stage like they arrived on rock radio in the early aughts — at a full sprint. On set list openers "Pain" and "Just Tonight..." Jim Adkins was frenetic, nonchalantly shaking his short bangs. By the time the band got to "Sweetness," beads of sweat cascaded down his cheek. Still, the band played on, impressing with a fan-friendly set list of familiar favorites.

In 2019, Adkins told Billboard that his early songwriting was "100 percent" unconscious, and as the band moved gracefully between 20-plus-year-old rockers like "Kill" and "Lucky Denver Mint," it seemed he could now play the classics from a coma if he wanted to.

From time to time, guitarist Tom Linton zoned out into the crowd, smiling contently as his hands fluttered from fret to fret as if they were completely autonomous. For Jimmy Eat World, it's all muscle memory at this point, but that didn't make the show any less fun.

While "Bleed American" and "Blister" are certified emo classics, rock ballads like "Hear You Me" are what set Jimmy apart from many of their peers. Pensive, tasteful and still remarkably catchy, the song was a nice way for fans to catch their breath after breakneck guitar hits like "A Praise Chorus" and "Big Casino."

On "23," electric guitar chords warped and bended to essentially lend their own vocals. When the song ended, the final seismic bass line reverberated through the chest cavity of everyone in the room.

Jimmy closed with the ubiquitous and hopeful hit "The Middle," and when the song ended, Adkins was exhausted. He turned his back to the crowd and wiped the sweat from his face with both hands. He took a victory lap on stage, and earned it, too. His band did enough to hold up their end of the co-headlining bargain, so when Manchester Orchestra sauntered on stage at 9:40 p.m., they were playing with house money.

They left many fans speechless anyways, which is a familiar theme for the Georgia band. Lyrically, frontman Andy Hull is perennially contemplating his speaking ability. "I can't speak, whatever I can speak" he sang on set list opener "Pride."

"You don't believe I can speak well at all," he says on "The Maze," an austere and stripped earworm the band performed later in the evening.

For what it's worth, Hull can do a lot more than speak well — he can sing with the best of them, too. Already a gifted lyricist, Hull also has one of contemporary rock's most powerful voices, and at the Armory, he proved it. Every major lyric Hull belted in downtown Minneapolis echoed and reverberated all the way to Northfield and back.

He delivered the chorus on "Dinosaur" in both a feathery falsetto and a snarling yelp. Hull gave the hook of the band's biggest hit, "The Gold," to the crowd, but one song later he returned to screaming on "Shake It Out." He also announced that the band was shooting a new music video during the song.

During venue-shakers like "Pale Black Eye" and "Cope," Hull writhed and wrestled at center stage, seemingly possessed by his own music. So did bassist Andy Prince, who fully lost it at the end of "I Can Barely Breathe," dipping his cherry red instrument to the floor and thrashing his body with it.

Adkins and Hull are both excitable frontmen, but while the former performed with a complacent confidence, Hull performed with obsessive fervor.

As Hull sang the final visceral lyrics of "The Silence," the show's closer, his voice warmly reverberated through the speakers like a conversation in a quiet room. After finishing, he leaned back and let the mic stand crash to the floor, exhaling a sign of relief and revealing what he and Adkins have in common most: both singers left the Armory stage breathless on Sunday.