When We Were Young Festival Day One Cancelled; Bands Play Last-Minute Shows To Fans

Day one of When We Were Young - that festival of all the emo bands you grew up listening to that looked too good to be true - was cancelled due to high winds in the area.

The festival resumes today, Sunday, 23 October (it's currently 2:50 pm in Las Vegas) and will go ahead on its final day, Saturday, 29 November. Performances by My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Avril Lavigne, Glassjaw, The Used, Alkaline Trio, Bright Eyes, Jimmy Eat World, I Prevail, and many more will rock the Neon Tent and Black, Pink, Checker, and Stripe stages. 

A statement on the festival website and social media read, "When We Were Young Festival organisers have spent the last several days proactively preparing the festival grounds for a windy Saturday. The National Weather Service has now upgraded their Saturday forecast to a High Winds Warning, including dangerous 30-40 mph (48.28 to 64.37 kmh) sustained winds with 60 mph (96.56 kmh) gusts. Under advisement of the National Weather Service and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, we have no other choice than to cancel today's When We Were Young Festival. The safety of our fans, artists and staff will always be our top priority."

As a result of the cancellation, several bands on the line-up played some small shows so their fans could still enjoy live music. Bring Me The Horizon announced their intimate show that featured Knocked Loose and Landon Barker (son of Travis Barker) on a hand-drawn poster. The Wonder Years played at the Rockstar Bar with La Dispute, Mom Jeans, and Sweet Pill.

The free small shows included: The All-American Rejects at SoulBelly BBQ, Hawthorne Heights with Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Amor For Sleep at The Strat, while The Sand Dollar in Downtown Las Vegas hosted Anthony Green, Senses Fail, Thursday, and Bayside. 

Last week, Matt Skiba claimed that When We Were Young organisers booked bands "before anybody said yes" - Vulture reached out to festival representatives for comment. 

He also said, "It was a Fyre Festival kind of stunt that worked. And I only know that because my band was on that initial flyer, with every other band from our whole ilk. And they almost expertly started advertising it before they had a single band on the bill. And somehow, all the bands agreed to do it. I'm not making this up. Somebody may correct me, but I know that Alkaline Trio, we hadn't confirmed anything. And when we read that, we called other bands that were playing, and nobody knew about it."