For the second straight year, Streetlight Manifesto is playing a hometown-ish show at the Stone Pony Summer Stage in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Every year for over ten years, Streetlight has played a hometown show in Sayreville at the Starland Ballroom, but starting in 2023, they have expanded that to a show on the Summer Stage, which they call ‘The Long Summer Night’.
The show, taking place July 6th this year, is a celebration, and as of now, is always a warmup show for their tour. Last year, it was the first show of the ‘Everything Goes Numb 20th Anniversary’ mini tour, and this year, it’s the first date on the ‘Myth of Monsters’ tour.
In 2023, as mentioned above, the band played their first record, ‘Everything Goes Numb’ from start to finish. In doing that, it also included some deep cuts on the setlist, like ‘The Saddest Song’, which was played for the first time since 2018. The band played five other songs not from the anniversary album, including ‘1234 1234’, another fan-favorite deep cut.
This year, the band went to Instagram to announce that they will be playing a “special” set, full of deep cuts. The band said they’d “consider your suggestions” in the comments, which usually means that probably won’t use the suggestions of the comments.
At the show, the band announced they would bring out a string quartet which goes by the name of Atlys, who had a slowed down, string cover of ‘A Better Place, a Better Time’ by Streetlight. The band will be joining Streetlight on stage.
On Tuesday, alt/indie band Mercy Union was announced as the opener for teh show. Mephiskapheles opened in 2023.
As for new music from Streetlight, they haven’t played or teased anything since they premiered a new song, ‘Mayday’ at Starland Ballroom in 2022. They never played that song again. However, earlier this year, Tomas Kalnoky, lead singer, said that the band’s newest record is near completion, which gives hope to many fans.
If you want more music, there are two shows inside the Pony that night, including one before the Summer Stage show starts by a band called Beat Stu. After the show, Tug of War Machine will perform at the indoor stage.
This year’s Long Summer Night is the first of the ‘Myth of Monsters’ tour, which is their first full tour since the ‘Calm Before the Chaos’ tour. The tour starts in July and spans all the way into December, divided into multiple legs. They are also stopping in Long Island for the Great South Bay Music Festival later this month, along with Brooklyn in early December.
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