First Day Back at the lansdowne, October 2 2026

In July of this year, on a ridiculously sunny day, the authors saw First Day Back play outside the Numero Group’s pop-up store in downtown Manhattan (below). On a very damp night in Sydney, we re-grouped in the smokers’ courtyard with only the umbrella of emo, figuratively construed, to shelter us from the rain. Some pretty moist projectiles, too, would no doubt be expelled from tonight’s shaggy-haired and baggy-jeaned crowd.

We thought it fitting we review the Santa Cruz four-piece’s foray into Sydnemo at their sold-out show at the Lansdowne Hotel: the dingy but reliable haunt for emo nites and –– well, it’s one of those architectured spaces that makes you seriously wonder how a human being could have played any part in its design. Two huge poles obstruct the view of anyone not immediately submerged in the pit. A metre-wide black wooden box sits next to the corner of the stage and looks like the set piece of an avant-garde theatre troupe. But these design flaws, miraculously, were the building blocks of a great night, one which culminated in First Day Back’s (sorry) life-giving headline.

In a nutshell, they’re self-proclaimed ‘sing-mos’ who’ve found themselves leading the charge of 90s emo’s revival. Combining the soft-loud guitar patterns of what’s called the genre’s ‘second-wave’ – bright, strong choruses studded with arpeggiation – with variously wallowing, wailing, and waning vocals, they also throw in violin and harmonica for good measure. Listen to ‘Moving Out’ or ‘Lines’ off their 2025 album Forward for a taste of their sound, which strings together Jejune’s dreaminess with Sunny Day Real Estate’s or Rainer Maria’s throaty choral explosions.

Forward (2025) strings together Jejune’s dreaminess with Sunny Day Real Estate’s or Rainer Maria’s throaty choral explosions.

You might have wondered, then, why a bunch of seventeen year-olds, in the first opener, C’est La Vie, were covering I Have Dreams (late 90s Floridian metalcore) to (similarly abrasive) shouts of approval? That would be one pillar of the emo Big Tent: despite not one ‘wave’ of emo really sounding at all like its predecessor, there’s this respect for a kind of mystical continuity that underlies its canon –– of bands, of geographical and generational ‘scenes’, and of VHS rips of particular shows on YouTube. ‘Countless Rooftops’ is an important one; they’re playing in a church or something, and C’est La Vie had their energy down pat. When the rhythm guitar got turned up a bit, it was melodic metalcore’s M.O. –– clean riffs, equal parts metallic and melancholic –– which pierced through the distortion in a moment of clarity and something like euphoria.

I talked after with Nosh, who cut his teeth in Sydney screamo band mycriesfallondeafears (now a year and a bit post-U.S. tour), and is now trialling a more third-wave metalcore sound in some as-yet-unnamed From First to Last-type ensemble. Aleks of Fear of Horses plays in, like, five bands at the time of writing. The diversity and novelty of the emo ‘sound’, and the willingness to master all, is perhaps the reason why Fear of Horses are just as good acoustic, stripped-back in a park, as they were dialled-up in full lateral head-banging glory. Their 2025 self-titled album propelled them into scary-good territory –– as a point of distinction to other Auskramz acts, a remarkable, mainly structural, restraint renders spoken word segments (including, in bandcamp recordings, Trainspotting dialogues) genuinely awe-some and not just eye-rollingly superfluous. Breakdowns are carefully meted out after two minutes of instrumental traction in ‘Make it Stop’. Halfway through their set, they dip into ‘Interlude’’s slowcore, before the onslaught of more screamo, in crowd-pleaser ‘Yay’, renders the determination of who’s actually in the band (and who’s merely a homie exercising prolonged-mic-grab privileges) impossible: ‘Why’d you have to dieeeee?’ 

The decidedly Australian ‘duheye-uh’ swung in the air as we went back out for a smoke and a chat, where we were forced to re-confront the gaping hole in the overhead shade. We all sat on the steep steps around the edges, in a bit of a microcosm of Australia’s concentrated population (except, instead of escaping the arid desert, we were avoiding the sprinkle-turned-downpour through the massive hole in the roof). For those inside, the threat of heat-stroke compelled a protest for the fans to be switched on (a demand that was never met) as First Day Back took to the stage. 

We ran inside to join what was immediately a collaborative and near-orchestral exercise: singing along to not only to the vocals, but to the various guitar and violin parts. From ‘Wait, do you Hear That?’, a vocal hook in the chorus erupted into a cheer followed by a long vocal siren that felt like it was written to be chanted along to. They stacked the beginning of the set with a number of unreleased songs (they’re currently working on their second album), and one track in particular began with a vocal solo featuring funky octave-switching that verged on a polite yodel — and there’s nothing this author likes more than folk technique in places where it doesn’t belong! For a band that was able to achieve widespread appeal so quickly in part because of their embrace of a nostalgic second-wave emo sound, we wonder if they’ll drill further into that lineage or move in a new direction. Tonight, we recognised them as masters of soft interludes and hard-hitting riffs –– we’d be glad to see them play to their strengths in their second album, while still pushing the envelope in terms of genre interbreeding and instrumentation.

one [unreleased] track began with a vocal solo featuring funky octave-switching that verged on a polite yodel — and there’s nothing this author likes more than folk technique in places where it doesn’t belong!

Although the bridge of one new violin-centric song featured a pretty repetitive riff which would do with some slight variation, it will probably sound better on the recording given the violin had to be mic’d up for it to be heard over the live band. Still, it was an impressive addition to their show and provided some great textural contrast. Lead singer Maggie (who goes by “Masumi” in her solo endeavours) appreciated our enthusiasm in an #inspirational speech about halfway through the set: “Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams!” Corny, touching, and perfectly suited to a show which feels so much like the sublimation of millennial optimism’s id. 

‘Us’’s harmonica divided the thick, hot air like rain the sweeping diagonally outside, and, wow, –– every inadvertent depression into the black shirt of the guy in front of me was profusely wet. Thankfully, somehow, it rained straight down from the ceiling (seriously) as ‘Twelve Mile Train Tracks’ resounded –– a deceptively jiggy track which packed in a slowed post-chorus punch and a violin outro that simply wailed. When the event’s organisers called upon us to watch out for the shorter members of the crowd, we seized the opportunity to, along with my friend Emily, my first real companion in the local emo scene, weave to ‘the pit’, where ‘Lines’ made steel caps of ballet flats. Dozens manned camcorders, smiling widely and chanting along with practically everybody for an encore, which was obliged; the footage no doubt bound for archival emo videography accounts (shoutout local bski productions and fallonyourself, and, you know, Hotstuff Productions for this recording).

We seized the opportunity, now, to weave to the pit, where ‘Lines’ made steel caps of ballet flats.