The night before the release, I remember sitting in front of my radio, my face inches away from the speakers, eagerly listening to the broadcast of the Riviera Theatre concert. The excitement of hearing the band in real time, “live,” just on the other side of the radio, playing with such energy and ferocity, filled me with so much excitement. Even my anticipation hadn’t been enough to prepare me for the new songs. When the power went out in Chicago, I scrambled to find extra cassettes to keep recording. I knew that I would run out of tape and I didn’t want to miss a single minute. At one point, my dad came in to my room and I was smiling from ear to ear, staring at the EQ lights, overflowing with joy, and he sat with me to listen to the entirety of “X.Y.U.” Looking back now, that night made it pretty clear that MCIS was an entirely different beast. It was, from ambition to execution, levels and evolutions beyond everything that had come before it (even my beloved “Drown”).

I spent all of my saved money on the tour’s merch, which gave me a pretty heavy rotation of shirts to wear, but the one in this picture was my absolute favorite.