Were we expecting Simple Plan?

No. Not really.

But that doesn’t mean that SCOPE’s Homecoming Simple Plan concert wasn’t entirely what we all needed.
With songs unapologetic and loud, catchy and quick, the audience was drowned in a wave of pop-punk adolescent nostalgia. The performance was energetic and lively, worthy of a Friday night out, with audience members ranging across generations—the expected millennials, Generation Z, even a few baby boomers—decked out in grungy flannel and fashions that fit the feel.

After a solid performance by Wavves, people stood waiting in anticipation for Simple Plan, some still fighting their way towards the front of the crowd.

The Pentacrest saw people at all levels of Simple Plan obsession assume positions relative to their own degree of commitment to the band: some packed in tight against the stage and some sat spread out on blankets in the grass towards the back of the Pentacrest lawn.

When the band started playing, even those who were hanging out at the fringes of the crowd got to their feet, unable to sit still any longer. When the band played “Jump,” the crowd did just that, undulating like the sea, sometimes crashing into one another.

Chances are, the majority of people below the age of 25 had a Simple Plan stage in their life—though many of us might just call it “middle school”—and the performance Friday night recalled memories of poorly done eyeliner, telling off your parents, and the feeling of defiance that exemplifies the childhood years that never seemed to end, until they did.

That night we were sent back in time, and the kids who, in the early naughties, thought they were rebellious and free, were brought face to face with their grown-up selves, now actual free adults. We screamed, we jumped, and we danced until our hair lost any semblance of being done.