The Counting Crows and Dashboard Confessional kicked off the weekend with an incredible show at Ravinia Festival in Highland Park on Friday, June 23rd.

Prior to the music kicking off with Dashboard Confessional around 7PM, music fans arrived to the Ravinia site as early as 5PM to settle in and have a pre-concert picnic on the lawn. Before Chris Carrabba and his five band members began their set, Adam Duritz of Counting Crows took the stage to tell everyone to “get off the lawn” and come join them in the pavilion for the main event. The audience continued to trickle in as Dashboard Confessional started their set with a throwback to 2006’s “Don’t Wait.” During performances of their songs, Carrabba’s fun-spirited stage presence shone through in the way he sang and carried himself, but it was during the between-song banter that his personality really came across. Before playing their third song of the night entitled “Belong,” Carrabba told the crowd that he had the opportunity to wander around the lawn earlier in the evening and meet some people, including one young girl named Emma. Carrabba pointed out Emily in the crowd, and shared that this was her first concert ever before dedicating the song to her.

Throughout the rest of the set, Carrabba weaved in anecdotes about the songs that the band was about to play, including a story about kissing a girl from Chicago under the Williamsburg Bridge before “Remember to Breathe” and telling the crowd that he’d seen the new Spider-Man movie before playing “Vindicated” since that song was used in Spider-Man 2. Most of the set was well-received by the audience, but everyone seemed particularly excited about the performance of “Stolen” and the hit “Hands Down,” the latter of which closed out the show. Dashboard Confessional’s set was a perfect and nostalgic start to the evening; I remember being in high school and listening to some of these songs and it was incredible to get the chance to form new memories with these songs at this concert.

Next up, Counting Crows took the stage to a completely packed pavilion, beginning their set with “Sullivan Street” off their debut album August and Everything After. From there, they jumped to perform “If I Could Give All My Love -or- Richard Manuel Is Dead” from their 2002 album Hard Candy before turning up the heat by playing their massive hit “Mr. Jones” as the third song of the night. Most bands wait to play their biggest hits until the end of their set, but I admired the bolder move and appreciated the electrifying energy of the audience dancing and singing along to the tune.

With so many great songs under their belt, it really felt like the entire setlist was just hit after hit, but there were definitely more mellow moments over the evening. For example, the very next song after “Mr. Jones” was the ballad “Colorblind,” which is still a favorite of mine, but features a dramatic piano-driven melody that starkly contrasts with the swingy, upbeat tempo of the previous song.

Similarly to Carrabba, Adam Duritz’s stage presence and between-song banter showed off his dynamic personality. Duritz would sometimes illustrate the lyrics of his songs with hand motions and body movements, essentially like an interpretive dance to help contextualize the words— for example he shrugged when he sang the line “I don’t know” in “Round Here” and he reached his arm out when he sang “I’m covered in skin” during “Colorblind.” There was also a frequent change up in the vocal cadence or inflictions of Duritz’s live performance, in comparison to the recorded versions of these songs, that added more texture to the live show. Then of course, Duritz’s sense of humor was on display whenever he took a moment to speak to the audience—whether it was the tale he told about “getting to crazy from crazy” when he was waiting for the muse behind “Washington Square” to write him back, or the way he mimicked a Chicago accent to describe how the audience sounded singing certain parts back to him.

To wrap up the main part of the set, Duritz performed (yet another hit) “A Long December” from the piano. The band quickly returned for an encore that began with “Hanginaround,” which featured a guest appearance from the entirety of Dashboard Confessional. The energy really soared with the epic, big band moment of having everyone onstage together. “Time and Time” again had been on the evening’s setlist, but it got unfortunately got cut and the encore ended with “Holiday in Spain,” which Duritz deemed as “our lullaby to you.”

Overall, the concert was filled with a lot of nostalgia, but all of the timeless hits made for a night of new memories you can’t forget.

Check out photos of the evening below, and see where you can catch the tour next here.