Photos/Review: Bayside @ Long Island

There truly is no place like home. After kicking off their tongue-in-cheek “25 Years of Errors Tour” way back in February, Bayside closed out their months-long journey in front of some familiar faces as the hometown heroes at The Paramount in Huntington, NY. The Long Island natives had kicked things off overseas with shows all over the UK while winter was still in full swing. Once back on North American soil, the Errors Tour broke down into three separate legs. The first run took place from late March through early April, with Sincere Engineer as the supporting act. Smoking Popes would take over the opening role for the second leg across the West Coast and Texas. The Sleeping would get the honors for the final leg along the East Coast as the tour concluded with shows in Florida all the way up to New York. Many of the tour’s stops featured two nights in the same town, where the band gave fans incentives to attend both nights, as they tackled different albums in full.

Bayside wanted to do something special for the Long Island show and released a teaser featuring artwork that portrayed local hotspot All American Hamburger, informing fans that the band would be performing their Self-Titled album in full to celebrate their 25th anniversary. A poster of the artwork featuring the long-standing fast food staple was also available for purchase as the sold-out crowd filed into the venue for the tour’s final stop, allowing fans to pick up a unique keepsake to remember the night by. Other nods to their New York roots were evident in a sticker set that included a Yankees-themed Bayside logo. Fans would later see Raneri rocking a Jeter shirt to drive that Yankee fandom home.

Before that, another local act was ready to make an impact. Much like Bayside, The Sleeping also got their start on Long Island. The American Post-Hardcore band, comprised of Douglas Robinson (Vocals), Cameron Keym (Guitar), Salvatore Mignano (Bass), and Joseph Zizzo (Drums), has been at it since 2003, with their music featured in several video games, including ones from the Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero series. The band took a hiatus in 2012 and, aside from a one-off appearance at The Paramount, had seemed to have gone their separate ways. The band reunited in 2023 at Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus with a show at the Amityville Music Hall, where they announced the band had reunited permanently and were ready to release some new material, though through crowd-funding as opposed to through a record label.

With the venue already feeling jam-packed, The Sleeping graced the stage at 8 PM. “Loud and Clear” was tapped as the opening track. Long-time fans sang along with the band, while those unfamiliar with The Sleeping quickly joined in upon hearing them for the first time. From there, the band leaned into “You’ll Be a Corpse Before Your Time” and “The Climb”. The band effortlessly hyped up the crowd as they switched from one track to the next. “If Your Heart Was Broken… You Would Be Dead,” “Tainted,” and “Better Than Anything Else” were among other tracks the band showed off to the Long Island crowd, as occasional crowd surfers made their way to the stage. For their last track, “Don’t Hold Back”, Robinson did exactly that and closed out the set in style by coming off the stage and joining fans at the barricade to sing the final track up close and personal with those in attendance.

The Sleeping had their work cut out for them as both Sincere Engineer and Smoking Popes set the bar high during the first two legs of Bayside’s 2025 tour. They proved they were up for the challenge with an eleven-song set that had fans along the East Coast enamored with the band’s on-stage presence and superb showing. Much like Bayside, there’s not much known about where The Sleeping goes from here, but fans should stay tuned and keep up to speed with what the future brings for the band.

The Sleeping

The lights went down a little after 9 PM to signal Bayside’s arrival. Though the band had used a similar opening sound bite at other venues throughout the tour, the phrase “This is the train to… Bayside… The next station is The Paramount in Huntington” had all fans feeling like they had stepped out of the venue and onto a train at the Long Island Railroad. Soon, Anthony Raneri (Vocals / Guitar), Jack O’Shea (Guitar), Nick Ghanbarian (Bass), and John “Beatz” Holohan (Drums) took their spots on stage as the crowd went nuts.

With the band promising to play through their self-titled album in full, Bayside’s setlist for the Long Island stop featured a different lineup compared to the rest of the tour’s stops. Every track on the band’s debut effort had its chance to shine, starting with the album’s opening minute-long track “Hello Shitty”. Top tracks like “Devotion and Desire”, the local favorite “Montauk”, and even the deeper cuts, like “Half a Life”, which has only been played live four times in the last decade, were all unleashed onto the Long Island Crowd. Raneri slowed down the set with the acoustic track “Don’t Call Me Peanut” as fans sang along. The frontman even took time to thank the Long Island fans, stating that fans like them are the reason the band can play through the album a quarter century after its release.

After paying tribute to their roots, the band turned its focus to its other releases. With more than half their setlist remaining, the band blasted into one of their newest tracks with “How To Ruin Everything (Patience)” off their 2024 release “There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive. Later in the set, “Miracle” and “Go To Hell” off the new album were also shown off. The rest of the setlist spotlighted every album in between, with at least one track off every major release being played. The band even found the time to pay homage to another famous Long Islander as they covered Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”. One last track for the Long Island crowd, and the tour itself, as Bayside closed out with “Sick, Sick, Sick.”

People say “Home is where the heart is,” and it’s clear that Bayside’s heart beats loudest in Long Island. One of many sold-out crowds the band had the fortune of playing in front of, Huntington’s energy was unmatched, as many in the crowd grew up not just listening to Bayside, but in many cases even knowing them through the local music scene. Regardless of where you live and how you heard of them, the only true “Error” would have been missing this tour. While the run’s namesake was a fun play on another artist’s tour, Bayside proved their fans can and will arrive in numbers just as swiftly.