Photo by Keith Koenig
Twenty-five years ago this month, a band from Mesa, Arizona put out a record that turned them from beloved underdogs into a fixture of every late-’00s playlist. Now Jimmy Eat World are marking the occasion two ways: a track-by-track video series digging into the making of Bleed American, and a tour that stops at Boston’s MGM Music Hall at Fenway on Saturday, June 20, with Thrice and Girls Against Boys opening.
The video series, called “Bleed American Breakdown,” went live on the band’s YouTube channel on June 5 — exactly 25 years to the day after the title track first appeared via DreamWorks Records. The hook is that the band reunited with producer Mark Trombino, who hadn’t been in a studio with them in more than two decades. Trombino produced Bleed American in Los Angeles in the fall of 2000, and had already handled their first two albums, 1996’s Static Prevails and 1999’s Clarity, so he’s about as close to a fifth member as the credits get.
The episodes were filmed at NRG Studios in North Hollywood this past April and roll out in album order, with Trombino and the four band members — singer-guitarist Jim Adkins, guitarist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch, and drummer Zach Lind — going song by song. First up is the title track. The label’s framing promises “fun new tidbits,” which is the kind of thing every anniversary reissue says; whether the breakdowns actually reveal much beyond studio nostalgia is the part worth watching for.
It’s not the first time the band has leaned into the long-form video format. The series reunites them with co-directors Keith Koenig of Distiller Works and Sam Shapiro of The VSRL Company, who worked on the 2021 Phoenix Sessions livestreams (per the band’s announcement).
The anniversary tour itself is already well underway by the time it reaches town. It kicks off June 9 at Red Rocks in Colorado and runs through the summer, with each night built around a full performance of Bleed American front to back. The Boston stop lands June 20 at MGM Music Hall at Fenway.
For a band that’s been at it more than three decades across 10 albums, Bleed American remains the one people reach for first — it’s the record with “The Middle” on it, after all. Twenty-five years on, hearing it played in full a few hundred feet from the Green Monster isn’t a bad way to test how it’s aged.