Jonathan Bautts says goodbye to Yellowcard over at Behind the Setlist:

It’S 2001. A young band called Yellowcard, fresh transplants to California by way of Jacksonville, Florida, is playing its first ever sold-out show. The city is Anaheim, California and the venue is Chain Reaction, a cramped but legendary punk rock club that has become a rite of passage for all up-and-comers.

The five members onstage aren’t the most polished live performers, but they have bounds of energy and display a promising potential. The drummer is a stickmaster with some of the quickest hands you’ve ever seen and the lead singer displays a surefire ear for melodies. But what stands out most is the presence of a violinist, which you think is an odd novelty for a rock band at first yet surprisingly fits in well.

I’ve loved reading all the Yellowcard retrospectives over the past few days and all of the memories shared by fans in our forums. This band was a staple for so many people and a true testament to the impact music can have on a listener.

Ryan Key of Yellowcard talks with Entertainment Weekly about the end of the band:

The track took weeks of tinkering and almost didn’t make it onto the album. “I still hadn’t found a chorus we liked,” he said. But when he finally came up with the melody and lyrics for the hook – “If I could find you now, things would get better” – they knew it would work. “We didn’t know it was going to get radio play or MTV success. But we had a sense that it was a special song, one of the most accessible, massive-sounding pop songs that we’d ever written. But we didn’t know that song was going to change our lives forever.”

We’ve got reviews, think-pieces, and podcasts coming later this week as we say goodbye to the band. Their final self-titled album is due out on Friday.

Evan Lucy has a nice interview and feature on the end of Yellowcard over at Alternative Press:

The sense of finality led Key to approach writing Yellowcard from a different angle lyrically, as well. The singer felt especially galvanized by the ability to have the album’s lyrics serve as his farewell to friends, fans and family, and he challenged himself to use each song to express a different sentiment of saying goodbye. Some, like the affecting wistfulness of “Empty Street” (“Boxing up the fireworks/cancel my parade/the street is empty tonight”) and album closer “Fields & Fences,” complete with a goosebump-inducing orchestral outro, find him staring down his rapidly approaching future as Yellowcard’s ex-frontman, while the fiery “Savior’s Robes”—with its biting chorus, “Play us a song I know/Make it an older one”—seems aimed at those who’d prefer the band’s Ocean Avenue selves be fossilized forever.

Trying to read the article and having an Ice Nine Kills video pop up in my face sure was fun.