Eighteen years is a long time to wait. Long enough for the posters on our childhood bedroom walls to fade, for burned CDs to gather dust, for entire lives to be built beyond the reach of Vans Warped Tour wristbands and late-night AIM chats. And yet, when The Starting Line stepped onto the Irving Plaza stage this past Friday, it felt like no time had passed at all. A single downstroke of Kenny Vasoli’s bass, a single shout into the mic, and suddenly the years collapsed into one thunderous heartbeat.

The show was more than a concert; it was a collective time machine. New York City, restless and sleepless as ever, crammed into every inch of the venue not just to hear the music, but to remember who we were when these songs first became ours. The announcement of Eternal Youth, their first album in nearly two decades, loomed like a promise in the air. Two singles already out – “Circulate” and “Sense of Humor” – gave us a glimpse into their future, but the night was built on the weight of memory: an era that shaped us now giving way to something unknown, something alive.

When the band launched into “Circulate” live for the very first time, the room seemed to vibrate with both disbelief and renewal. Here was a band that had every right to rest on nostalgia alone, yet they chose to stretch their wings in front of us, to remind us that they are not relics, but a living, breathing force.

New York crowds have their reputation: detached, too cool, hard to impress. But that night proved otherwise. We were loud. We were relentless. And as Vasoli grinned into the mic and admitted, “This is a spectacular crowd which we’re not always used to,” the words felt like a benediction. Around me, I saw faces lit up not by phones, but by something unspoken: recognition, catharsis, joy. Someone crowd-surfed in a Winnie The Pooh costume. Another clung to the barricade in a Teletubby suit. It was ridiculous and perfect – proof that these songs, born in the early 2000s, still belonged to us in 2025.

What struck me the most wasn’t just the music, but the community. The daughter of a band member ran the merch booth, freshly twenty-one, and fans tipped her with the same affection they’d once given the band in sweaty clubs. Between songs, Vasoli bantered with familiar faces in the pit, pointing out repeated crowd-surfers with the warmth of an old friend. It reminded me that the core of pop-punk has never been rebellion for rebellion’s sake; it’s been connection, a family born out of distortion pedals and broken strings.

There were moments that felt suspended in amber. An acoustic “Drama Summer” that turned the packed venue into a campfire circle. “The Best of Me,” closing the night as though we were all back in 2007 – tangled in high-school heartbreaks, sneaking one more listen on our iPods before the bus ride home ended. The band knew what those songs meant, and they honored them, not as museum pieces, but as gifts passed back to the crowd, still alive in our throats.

By the time the house lights came up, I realized what made this night so moving. It wasn’t just hearing the old songs again. It was being reminded that the music we thought belonged to our youth still has a pulse – and so do we. The Starting Line called their upcoming record Eternal Youth. Maybe that’s the point: it’s not about staying forever young, but about knowing the parts of ourselves that mattered at sixteen can still matter now, decades later.

At Irving Plaza, with sweat dripping from the ceiling and voices hoarse from shouting, it felt like we’d carried a piece of ourselves across time and handed it right back to the band that gave it to us first.

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