A high school favorite has matured with its fans.
The Starting Line will headline the Varsity Theatre tonight at 7 p.m. for the first time in Louisiana since 2002, when it played alongside Sum 41.
The Starting Line released its third album, “Direction,” in July.
“Colleges seem to like to have us perform for them,” said Kenny Vasoli, bassist and lead singer.
Some fans turned to the band’s earlier work for inspiration before college.
“I discovered the band my senior year of high school,” said Elyse Herman, architecture junior, in an e-mail. “The songs had a huge tie in relationships and friends [then], and now they are beginning to take on new memories and meanings, while the songs stay the same.”
“Say It Like You Mean It,” the band’s debut album, gained popularity in the early millennium’s pop-punk movement around the same time as Blink-182’s “Enema of the State” and New Found Glory’s self-titled album were released.
Like Herman, Sarah Giarrusso, Spanish freshman, has loved the The Starting Line since her junior year in high school.
Giarrusso said she discovered the band when a friend burned her a CD. She used a lyric from the band to put on her classroom’s bulletin board at the end of her senior year.
Vasoli said he didn’t want to hop into the pop-punk bandwagon, although he understands his band was a part of it.
“We didn’t want to be the next Blink-182,” Vasoli said. “We wanted to have the same credibility as a band like Saves the Day.”
Older songs, though not as mature in writing, still hit to the heart with Vasoli.
“There are a couple of songs that still mean a lot to me,” he said. “‘The Make Yourself at Home’ record was a really sentimental record to me.”
On The Starting Line’s Warped Tour stint, popular bands like Chiodos came to Vasoli and told him how much The Starting Line’s older work meant to them.
He said the writing process hasn’t changed; it has just matured. He said he was determined to write a more established record.
“We tried to put our best foot forward,” he said. “We wanted to get more energy without getting super fast.”
Vasoli wanted “Direction” to be a happy middle ground between his band’s past pop sensibility and out-of-the-box creativity.
He said his father’s music influenced much of his new music.
“I just got real heavy into James Brown and Bob Dylan,” he said.
Vasoli is also pleased with the line-up for the show tonight with opening acts Four Year Strong, Permanent Me and Baton Rouge locals Meriwether.
“Four Year Strong are putting a new spin on something already dated,” he said. “I just saw Permanent Me for the first time, and they were good.”
Some students on campus said they were eagerly awaiting the concert.
“The Starting Line is a great band, and I know the concert is going to be amazing,” Giarrusso said.
Vasoli said there is going to be an equal mix of songs from his band’s debut through the new album.
—Contact Adam Pfleider at [email protected]