The (Almost) No Barricade Tour Waterparks (night 1)

Waterparks writes anthems that define artistic eras, emotionally precise, sonically distinct, and color-coded. Awsten Knight, Geoff Wigington, and Otto Wood have built one of modern rock’s most vibrant, shapeshifting catalogs, reaching 1 billion streams and a No. 1 Alternative Album in the U.S. But numbers were never the point. Waterparks measure success in less tangible ways. It’s in the connection between artist and audience, whether headlining theaters or festivals or supporting My Chemical Romance on a sold-out arena run. And it’s in the ambition of the art itself. Does what they’re making matter? Is this art, this music, consistently exciting, challenging, and overwhelmingly alive? Waterparks take creative risks without sacrificing gigantic melodic hooks. The band’s biggest streaming hits, “I Miss Having Sex But At Least I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore” (2019) and “Stupid for You” (2016), are a stark contrast in texture and dynamics. JINX, the band’s sixth full length album, opens with cinematic flair juxtaposed with emotional intimacy: “TELL ME WHY” is a story of death, purgatory, confrontation, and return. That deliberate juxtaposition runs throughout JINX, with each song asserting its purpose rather than blending into a palette. “PROWLER” is a study in isolation and reckoning. “RED GUITAR” snaps in the opposite direction, with swaggering hooks. “IF LYRICS WERE CONFIDENTIAL” folds cutting internal commentary into a song that thrives on tension. Even at its most aggressive or surreal, JINX remains tightly composed, its chaos less accidental than thoughtfully curated. That multiplicity has always defined Waterparks. The band lives in the tension between charm and abrasion, sincerity and irreverence, building songs that can disarm as quickly as they hit. It’s a balance that runs across all six albums thus far. Each era raises the stakes. The scope widens, the ideas sharpen, and the band keeps moving forward, faster than expectations can settle around them. “My creative competition is me,” Knight says. “And I’m hard to beat.”