Eight years ago I was in my last year of high school. I had grown up a pop punk kid, I was obsessed with Blink 182, Sum 41, The Ataris, NOFX and Lagwagon. A couple of years before I had dabbled with expanding my knowledge of the scene by listening to a band called Taking Back Sunday, which I had enjoyed but not pursued beyond that. Musically 2004 was a dark time for me, Hoobastank records were in my CD player as I sung along to "The Reason" thinking I was the coolest motherfucker ever.
As 2004 went on I began to finally explore the rest of the punk scene in order to find something new to listen to. With a lot of help from a website called Absolutepunk.net, and a website called emogame.com I found a large list of bands to listen to. I went on Kazaa or Napster or whatever and downloaded enough songs to fill one blank CD with a bunch of bands. This action informed my musical tastes to this day. A whole new world was opened up to me. Bands like Saves the Day, The Juliana Theory, Brand New, Jimmy Eat World, My Chemical Romance, and the Movielife hit me and I instantly wanted more. I began researching their back catalogues and buying them where I could. Little did I know that one of the bands on this CD would mean more to me than the rest.
That band was Thursday.
My first Thursday song was "Paris in Flames", and while I liked the song, the band kind of fell by the wayside in my listenings. Where You Want To Be, Futures and Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge were getting all the love and I took one listen to Full Collapse and it didn't hit me. Around this time as well, the "Emo" wave had started to engulf suburban Sydney, brought on by the massive success of My Chemical Romance. Hairs were growing long and swooping, T shirts were black, sadness was all the rage.
I was having beers with a friend when it happened. He had similar taste to me and we had just listened to Tell All Your Friends in Full. I requested more Taking Back Sunday but he denied me, saying he wanted to listen to something different. He suggested Thursday and I told him I didn't really listen to to them. He looked at me strangely, got up and put on War All The Time without saying a word. He came back, sat down and said "You're going to like this". Like it I did, I was taken aback from the very first chords of For The Workforce, Drowning. I was not usually into bands with screaming elements, but Thursdays didn't seem forced or sound like a guy gargling hot gravel for no reason. They seemed passionate, like the weight of the words behind them left singer Geoff Rickly with no other choice. As I left the next day I borrowed his copy of War All The Time and listened to it on the way home. Curious, I listened to Full Collapse again as well, but this time concentrating. I loved it, but not quite as much as War All The Time. I know most consider it to be their weakest, or not as strong, but War All The Time was special to me, it was my entry point.
Two years later I'm in University, the "Emo" wave had well and truly died in Sydney. My Chemical Romance were now "fags", the black hair dye had been washed out of thousands of hair cuts. The people in high school who used to ask me for music had long since moved on, save for a couple of friends that continued to listen to these bands. I was still buying every CD, going to every show I could and building my collection of band Tees. This is when Thursday released A City By The Light Divided. I had been waiting for this moment. I popped it in my car and I was thrown a little on the first listen. Why can I barely hear Geoff? What happened to the screaming? Does everything seem a little... slow? But I kept driving, and as I did I let the sound wash over me. The ambience of songs like Running From The Rain sounded like nothing Thursday had ever done before, but were still unmistakably them. At This Velocity was probably the heaviest song from their catalogue, and a great bridge between their old sound and their current one. I listened to it all through 2006, it was there when I met and began to date my first girlfriend, who hated it, but I didn't care. I spent hours combing through the lyrics and the dense instrumentation and soaking it all in.
In 2009, Common Existence came out, and once again I was addicted. Things had changed for me personally. My first girlfriend had come and gone (replaced by another that also wasn't a fan), so had University. I had moved out of my parents place to live with a friend. What had not changed was Thursday's ability to put out stellar material consistently. What had changed was their sound, again. This album was louder, introduced the screaming back, and was faster paced. Casual listeners might have called it a return to their old sound but it clearly wasn't. It was just the sum of everything they had been doing all this time condensed into one cd. Atmosphere was present on some tracks, pounding guitar riffs on others. Closing track You Were The Cancer was Thursdays best album closer, and these guys knew how to close albums. An epic 7 minute track that covers all the sonic bases of a Thursday song, it was the one I kept coming back to. In between this period I managed to see Thursday live once, and they were fantastic. Geoff had bronchitis but still gave the show everything he had. My friend even caught Tucker's drum stick.
Last year, Thursday released the best album of their careers, No Devolucion. A dense, atmospheric journey through the concept of devotion, the album was the culmination of Thursdays evolution. Everything was carefully constructed, from the lyrics to the sound production. Put this side by side with Full Collapse and they couldn't be more different, but over the course of their career it feels like it makes sense. Last year was also the year Thursday announced that they would be calling it quits. The statement didn't so much shock me, even though they seemed creatively invigorated with No Devolucion. It did leave me feeling sad, but grateful for all the times they have been there for me.
That brings us to today, where I type this rambling post while listening to War All The Time, the record that started it all for me. A few days ago I was lucky enough to attend one of Thursday's final shows, and the passion and energy they put into that show is something I will remember for the rest of my life. They seemed genuinely thankful to be up on stage and looked like they were enjoying every moment. I know I did. So basically this is a thank you, for growing up with me, for being there on some pretty memorable occasions in my life, and for always releasing music that I connected to. I will always love your music, and continue to hope that one day in the future we may hear from you again.
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