Waterparks will be the cure to the social distancing blues: show review and photos

I recently saw a meme about genres of pop-punk and emo music. It suggested the idea of “neon emo”. Who else could showcase this better than Waterparks?

And, no, I don’t just say that because of Awsten Knight’s luminant hair. Neon emo also includes sounds like new All Time Low and probably even 5 Seconds of Summer if you really wanted to argue the semantics. Neon emo is that bright vocal-led and deeply energetic music that still makes you want to cry in a moshpit sometimes.

Waterparks has called themselves “God’s favorite boyband”, so maybe that’s another way of thinking about it.

Either way, a Waterparks show is exactly where you’ll want to find yourself when the bags under your eyes are getting too heavy to carry on your own and you don’t think you can last another moment at that 9-5 job that you settled for despite spending all of your teenage years saying that you’d never. Waterparks is a strange pillar of hope, of energy, of youthfulness that so often is lost in modern ‘pop-punk’. 

A bit ago, we were at a Waterparks show and it made me realize something about music and the industry: it has the dumbest rules. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: people love to hate on music that young girls love simply because we don’t believe in the taste of young, empowered women. 

Waterparks had the venue full to the brim of rather young girls. These girls, though, were passionate and full of more life than I’ve ever seen in the emo scene before. It wasn’t only young girls there, of course, but the girls were no strangers to “punk”. If anything, they’re fixing it. They take the moshpit seriously but know when to help each other up when they fall. They’ll crowd surf to their favorite songs, but also to a random Taylor Swift cover that Awsten insists on playing (not that that’s a bad thing!).

We’re no strangers to Waterparks shows and their iconic Parxie fanbase, though. From Warped Tour to opening for All Time Low, we’ve kept our eyes on this band. Their music and realness are able to peel away at our jaded 20-something-year-old attitudes and pull out the giggling fangirls within. 

Going to a Waterparks show isn’t just your average concert. At Webster Hall, they headlined and had every person in the audience on the edge of their (metaphorical) seat waiting for the next joke or next song because at a Parks show, you never know what will happen. At times it feels like a Waterparks show is just one giant joke, but maybe that’s kinda the point: taking music so seriously all the time cannot be good for you.

Now, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some real and genuine connection in the music, it just means that emotion can be communicated in so many different ways. I know I wasn’t the only crying as they played “I Miss Having Sex, But At Least I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore” (which became popularized from TikTok) and while Awsten may joke that “Lucky People” is about actress Victoria Justice sometimes, there is a real, authentic, and raw message of love there.

Awsten, Otto, and Geoff have created something truly special. You can see it in the way they interact with their audience, each other, and the music itself. Everything about a Waterparks show seems to be crafted and then destroyed at the same time. No one Waterparks show will make you feel the same way. Sticking to the status quo (even their own status-quo) is just not their style.

As I sit inside abiding by New York City’s guidelines on isolation, I can’t help but think that the moment social distancing is over I need to be at another Parks show.

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