To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Full Collapse and 10th anniversary of No Devolución, Thursday has announced the third rendition of their ticketed livestreams. The appropriately titled Signals V3 – Full Devolución figures to follow in the traditions of Signals V1 and V2 (which collectively featured appearances from members of My Chemical Romance, Against Me!, Coheed and Cambria, Texas is the Reason, and Quicksand) by including a bevy of special guests to go along with the performances.
“We’re doing all of No Devolución and Full Collapse, and I think it’s weird how symmetrical those records are in some ways,” frontman Geoff Rickly told SPIN. “I think of them as these weird mirror images of each other. It’s one super young and innocent one, and one where we kind of knew what we were doing. We’ll be doing a lot of crossing the songs into each other so that you can sort of see what the No Devolución songs would be like on Full Collapse [and vice versa]. I think the lockdowns are almost done, so I don’t know if anybody will even want to see a third streaming event, but I’m really excited about this.”
The band’s livestreams also maintain a much higher production and narrative value than many artists who have been experimenting with the format over the past year, as Thursday’s rhythm guitarist, Steve Pedulla, happens to be a professional cinematographer between the band’s occasional tours.
“We’ve got a bunch of ideas, and having a filmmaker in the band makes it a lot of fun for us because we like to play with the narrative possibility of having cameras there instead of a crowd,” Rickly said. “It’s almost like when people talk about the difference between stage and movies, because with a camera, you can play much smaller, more subtle and more intimate, whereas on stage you have to broadcast. So like a lot of it is figuring out how we can bring it down into making the story much more intimate. We have a great time with them, so I think we’ll probably collect them and do something with them when they’re all done.”
The show will be streamed live from locations in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and London at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET on May 14 and will also include performances from A.A. Williams and Kayleigh Goldsworthy. Ticket packages are available now, and the band promises plenty of opportunities for free merch and tickets will be available for currently unemployed fans.
In SPIN’s recent interview with Rickly to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Full Collapse, an unrelated (but fascinating) story of one of the most memorable festival experiences in Thursdays recent history was cut for length. For those interested in reading the songwriter’s experience at Sound on Sound Fest — which took place on a storm-filled weekend at the Sherwood Forest Faire (a Renaissance fair village/venue near Austin, Texas) in November 2016 — check it out below.
SPIN: Alright, so this has nothing to do with Full Collapse, but I have to talk to you about the last time I saw you perform. It was at Sound on Sound Fest in 2016, which was a festival experience that I don’t think anyone would ever forget. It was on the grounds of a Renaissance fair just outside of Austin — thrown by the former Fun Fun Fun Fest crew — and your set was right after this giant storm blew through with tornado warnings and such where they were like evacuating people and sheltering the artists and press inside of a castle.
Geoff Rickly: I remember that very, very vividly. We’d been wanting to play Fun Fun Fun song for years, and we finally got asked to play that. It was to the point where I was in Mexico City for a friend’s wedding, and I flew out early to get to Sound on Sound because I was so excited. I was just like “This is it. This is the coolest fest.” I was excited about the spot they gave us, because it was either right before or after Courtney Barnett and Explosions in the Sky. And then we got there and it was getting canceled because the weather was terrible.
I remember right before we played, they kept saying “You’re not gonna be able to play…” and we’re like “We’re playing. It doesn’t matter. It’s gonna clear up, and we’re gonna play.” We kept saying that, and they were like “OK, we’re evacuating the fairgrounds. Are you sure you don’t want to cancel?” I think they were trying to get all the bands to cancel, so they could cancel the night. But we’re like “No, we’re gonna we’re gonna see how it goes.”
We got to the Explosions in the Sky guys — who we’ve also done some music with — and we’re like “You’re not gonna cancel, right?” and they’re like “Not if we don’t have to.” So we held on and watched them bussing the crowd away from the fairgrounds. Eventually, they were like “Look, it’s pretty bad, but you can play if you push back your set by an hour and cut it to 25 minutes. What do you want to do?” So we agreed to that.
When we were coming out to the stage, there was just water sitting everywhere. Courtney Barnett’s tour manager was out there like “This is really unsafe…” Actually, he’s Australian, so he just kept saying [Rickley begins pointing in every direction] “That’s death. That’s death. Every outlet is another way to die. That’s death.” But we’re like “No, we’re still gonna try to play.” But then we go to play and the PA doesn’t work! So now we’re not going to have any sound. There’s only like maybe 500 people in the field watching — like not even 1000 people in the whole place — and they’re like “Nobody’s here. You don’t have a PA. You should just cancel.” Instead, I said “Let’s turn all the monitors, so we can’t hear ourselves, and just blast the monitors out to the crowd. We’ll just play for who’s here.” I mean, we came all this way, so we’re gonna play like, I’m missing a wedding, we’re gonna play.
We changed our set around to try to figure out what would still make sense to play, and then all of a sudden in the middle of a song, the PA just turned on and you saw the crowd come to life. The buses started coming back, and by the time we were done playing there, we probably had like 6000-7000 people in the field. It was a really good show, because there was that energy that you get, when nobody’s trying to be the best band in the world. Nobody’s pretending it’s going to be some breakout performance. It’s just a bunch of people who really want to be there and really want to have some fun, and they’re all trying to have a good time together. It was that spirit of just genuinely having a good time together. It made that show almost like a religious experience for me.
As soon as we’re done playing, Courtney Barnett’s tour manager was like “She’s not going out there. There’s no way she’s going out. We’re not gonna let her get electrocuted.” But she was like “I’m gonna go do that. That was awesome.” I remember feeling like it was so cool that she thought it was cool and wanted to play because of it. Somebody sent me a clipping of the local paper after that with a headline like “Thursday defies rain, takes crowd to church” or something like that. I love moments like that. They have nothing to do with us being a great band or not, they’re just about everybody being in the right place at the right time, and getting through it together.
It was before I got sober, too. So what I remember about the rain was just shaking with withdrawal and just being like “I’m so sick, I gotta go play music.” And then when we were playing, I just didn’t feel the withdrawal anymore. I didn’t feel bad. I’m like “I’m just here in the music, and everything feels good.” It was a really good experience. But I also remember huddling in that castle too and talking to a bunch of artists I hadn’t met yet, but now I’m friendly with, like Open Mike Eagle.
