A DAY TO REMEMBER and YELLOWCARD "Maximum Fun Tour" Show Review Pittsburgh, PA 11/05/25

The Pop Punk Dad
12 minutes ago
5 min read

I don't know if it's "a sign of the end times", we elder emos are showing our age, pop-punk is finally getting the recognition it deserves, or maybe a bit of all three but seeing bands like A Day To Remember and Yellowcard play in the same arenas that the likes of Pearl Jam and Sabrina Carpenter have played in is simply awesome.

The Maximum Fun Tour sees the likes of Florida natives A Day To Remember and Yellowcard, along with Philadelphia, PA natives The Wonder Years, bring together 20 years of pop-punk and metalcore while bridging the gap with midwest emo and alternative rock, giving us 2004 Vans Warped Tour vibes combined with basement divebar VFW club shows all in an arena setting.

All three bands have recently dropped new music this past year with A Day To Remember's "Big Ole Album Vol. 1" dropping back in March of 2025, The Wonder Years releasing not only the 10th anniversary of their "No Closer to Heaven" album but also their "Burst and Decay Vol. III" record, which is an album of reimagined songs, and finally Yellowcard releasing their highly anticipated record "Better Days" which was produced by blink-182's Travis Barker.

Wednesday, November 5th, 2025. A DAY TO REMEMBER, YELLOWCARD, and THE WONDER YEARS come to Pitsburgh, PA for The Maximum Fun Tour at PPG Paints Arena, home of the Pittsburgh Penguins. The audacity of the tour name, "Maximum Fun", it must live up to its name, and knowing these three bands, it will.

The Wonder Years took the stage first. I've seen this band twice already this year, once at the Vans Warped Tour in DC and at the Four Chord Music Festivalin Pittsburgh, leading to their show with A Day To Remember, and countless times prior, and they never disappoint.

They banged out nearly a dozen songs ranging all over their 20 year career, opening with "I Don't Like Who I Was Then" from their No Closer to Heaven album, but playing the reimagined, mellow string version leading into the song from their new Burst and Decay Vol III album leading into the track. Given that they're a Pennsylvania band, there were a lot of Wonder Years fans in the crowd singing along to every word to tracks like GODDAMNITALL and Cardinals and especially the more throwback tracks like Local man Ruins Everything and Passing Through a Screen Door. The Wonder Years closed their set with their signature track Came Out Swinging, a track that got me personally into listening to the band so many years ago.

With a brief intermission, Yellowcard is up. The last time Yellowcard came through Pittsburgh was at the 9th annual Four Chord Music Festival, and their set was cut due to an unforeseen tornado that touched down just outside of the festival, so Pittsburgh fans, myself include, have been egar to see them back live, especially with this new album Better Days that just dropped.

Yellowcard's entire set felt very nostalgic from the time the lights dimmed. A helmeted person on a dirtbike came out and shot t-shirts into the crowd before the Top Gun Anthem was heard over the PA. That nostalgic 80's and 90's movies anthems was a theme throughout the entire set with clips of The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, and Back to the Future, being played in between songs. The Top Gun music though wasn't your nomal "walkout" music, the band was actually playing the Top Gun Theme song, before breaking into track ONLY ONE and then blasting into track LIGHTS AND SOUNDS.

The entire set of the evening was a good mix of tracks of old and new, playing tracks honestly i, Bedroom Posters, and title track Better Days from their latest record while playing fan favorites ilke Way Away, Light Up The Sky, and With You Around before closing out with their breakthrough hit Ocean Avenue off of their 2002 album of the same name. It was truly spectacular to see Yellowcard in an arena setting looking like an arena band with neon lights, confetti, pyro and lasers. Every lead singer Ryan Key was taken back saying that he couldnt't beieve he was playing in places like this every night now and that he mus've somehow slipped into some alterned demention, noting how the band almost gave up a few years back until a fateful show at Chicago's Riot Fest sort of changed it all.

For me, it was nice to see A Day To Remember inside and not in the blistering heat, as both times I had before were at the 10th annual Four Chord Fest, and the Vans Warped Tour in Atlantic City, both days etched in my head of being the hottest festivals I have ever attended. ADTR opened with a classic pop-punk overture, the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey before the entire crowd chants the opening lines to A DOWNFALL OF US ALL. It's one banger after another with I'M MADE OF WAX LARY... up next, kicking straight into RIGHT BACK AT IT AGAIN.

There were quite a few tracks off of the new "BIG OLE ALBUM VOL. I" in cluding tracks BAD BLOOD, FLOWERS, MIRACLE, one of my new favorites ALL MY FRIENDS which the new video out features WWE's Seth Rollins, and track LEBRON where before playing the theme to the movie Space Jam played while stage hands dressed as basketball refs brough giant basketball nets on stage and during the song, giant pool-sized inflatable basketballs wer thrown into the crowd and the fans could throw them into the nets on stage.

One of the most notorious A Day To Remember live acts is something called "crowd surfers crowd surfing crowd surfers", where (and follow me, or just Google it), it's where someone crowdsurfs, and then someone else stands up on top of the crowdsurfer like a surf board and rides them through the crowd to the security rails, all while the song BETTER OFF THIS WAY is playing, a classic staple in the band's set.

Nearing the end of the night, A Day To Remember thanked The Wonder Years and Yellowcard for being there for years. Lead singer Jeremy McKinnin said that while starting out, ADTR had opened up for both of the bands and they were always amazing people to them before jumping into track CLOSER THAN YOU THINK.

When the acoustic guitar came out and the lights went dim, we all knew what was happening. They played IF IT MEANS A LOT TO YOU which was particually awesome to see the cell phone lights illuminating in the stadium of PPG Paints Arena, with the full band kicking back into the end the song and finishing it and then for them to end the night out with tracks ALL I WANT and ALL SIGNS POINT TO LAUDERDALE.

A DAY TO REMEMBER to me will always be a well rounded band. Being that Pittsburgh is my hometown, there were so many people from that show that I never knew were ADTR fans that went. They're genuinely a band for the people. So many people were there for Yellowcard and The Wonder Years as well, it was so amazing to see so many people turning up early for the opening acts as well. It's so great to see pop-punk music getting the flowers it deserves sometimes, the show truly was (this is going to be corny) Maximum Fun.

A DAY TO REMEMBER, YELLOWCARD, and THE WONDER YEARS are currently on THE MAXIMUM FUN TOUR

Check out photo gallery, tour dates, highlights, and more below!