Aly & AJ Kick Off the "Places To Run" Tour With Nostalgic Hits and High Energy
- Maggz Ardillo
- 45 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Written by Maggz Ardillo
| Aly & AJ’s setlist isn’t just 2 hours of “Potential Breakup Song” - their more recent releases serve driving drum beats, warm vocals, and vintage rocker vibes.
It’s the last day in February and an unseasonably warm night in Charlottesville, Virginia at the historic Jefferson Theater with a lively crowd gathered in the quaint downtown for the opening night of Aly & AJ’s “Places to Run” Tour. With sold out VIP packages and fans sporting cow-themed accessories (honoring the sisters’ iconic looks from their 2006 film Cow Belles) fans were eager to hear songs off their latest full length album Silver Deliverer and favorites from their Disney Channel days.
With so much of Y2K culture making a comeback in fashion, beauty, and technology trends, it only makes sense that the culture of music in the early 2000s has also returned to center stage in the past year. Younger fans at concerts excitedly pull out their Nikon Coolpix cameras that they bought off eBay while millennials are just happy to have the chance to see some of their favorite artists from the past still touring.
For me, it’s not just the nostalgia of staying up late watching episodes of Lizzie McGuire and Kim Possible, but also of my childhood years longing to make music like my idols. My sister and I spent many hours at the family piano, writing songs and arranging covers and mash-ups of our favorite songs. We would work certain sections over and over, recording voice notes on ancient iPhones and subjecting our parents to hearing our bickering in the process. We would spend time apart in our rooms playing our own guitars before coming together to tune them to the very out of tune piano so we could play together, not preparing for any sort of real performance, but just for the love of music and happiness that it brought us. In this sense, watching Aly and AJ Michalka still performing together in their 30s brings all these memories flooding back.
Aly & AJ’s iconic 2007 album Insomniatic will forever be cemented in their music catalog history with hits like “Potential Breakup Song” and “Like Whoa.” However, since their heyday of the early 2000s, the duo have released 5 full length albums plus singles and EPs. Their years of working in the industry has paid off, having the opportunity to grow into their adult selves and find their unique voice and sound.
When the duo appeared on stage in Charlottesville, they were both dressed in grey blazers and button up shirts. They looked cool and casual with their long hair and guitars, supported by three band members in a traditional rock group set up. Fans at the front of the stage stared up in awe as they performed favorites like “What It Feels Like” and “Next to Nothing.”
“It brought us closer together, it’s the reason that we are a band,” Aly shared before the iconic intro of “Rush” began. The driving drum beat and crescendo of the guitars feel the same as they did when I first heard the song at 15, blaring it on the blue boombox in my bedroom, this time hearing it with older ears sung by the same artists I admired so much as a kid.
Standing in the crowd, it felt refreshing to see less phones held in the air, more people just there to drink beer with their friends and dance around and sing. During some of the older hits, many fans lifted their voices in song, giving in to the booming lyrics and moment of joy.
AJ introduced her favorite song from Silver Deliverer, “Lasso” which really embodies how I would describe how their sound has transformed over the years. Their band really shines here, whining guitar riffs and light drum snares accenting their ethereal and rich vocals.
Fans sang loudly to “Chemicals React” as the nostalgia rushed through the atmosphere of the venue once again. Best friends leaned on each other, beaded jackets shimmering under the stage lights.
In what has become a tradition for the band, Aly took a moment in the middle of the show to introduce their song “Sirens” and their partnership with nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety, to raise awareness and money in this moment when gun violence is so prevalent in the United States. In 2022, the band survived a mass shooting after one of their concerts in Sacramento, California and since then have advocated for reinstating the U.S. assault weapons ban. They make frequent trips to Washington, D.C. to bring attention to this important issue and at each concert encourage fans to make a donation, no matter how small, to Everytown. The song is emotional and raw, with lyrics like “Another day in America, we wait around for the change that never comes.”
In a more intimate moment of the set, Aly and AJ sat at the center of the stage with acoustic guitars, introducing “Something More” as a song that AJ wrote about her first love and subsequent breakup.
“Places to Run” wrapped up the main setlist of the show, fans cheering loudly and singing along to the upbeat chorus, excitement evolving into stomping and cheers of “one more song” as the lights dimmed and the band left the stage.
Soon they were back, Aly seated at a keyboard, a red spotlight illuminating her. The crowd goes wild and the energy in the room skyrockets again, a rare occasion of people refusing to leave until the encore is finished.
“Here’s one last one for the night, you guys!” she said with raised eyebrows before the eerie, opening theme of “Potential Breakup Song” began. The live version they play on tour is stripped back, Aly’s keyboard skills highlighted in the acoustic opening.
Chronically online millennials will never forget the end of 2020, when the duo suddenly released “Potential Breakup Song Explicit” and the comments were instantly filled with affirmation that this is what fans had wanted for years. This version was for every kid who once thought “stupid” was a bad word, replaced in the opening lyrics with “Except for the fact it was my birthday, my f*cking birthday” as the duo sings of a scorned lover. The song had found a resurgence in popularity during the high times of TikTok and the re-release not only included swear words, but re-worked instrumentals and a more mature tone.
Fans took the moment, almost 20 years after the initial release of this song, to scream the new explicit lyrics. Collectively, they drowned out the moody melody Aly is playing and singing on stage before the rest of the band AJ joined in to continue the song. Selfishly, I would love to one day hear a studio version of this arrangement without drunk fans attempting to sing over them.
The “Places To Run” Tour continues through the beginning of April before a break to accommodate AJ’s filming schedule for the upcoming season of White Lotus. They will kick off the second half of their tour in Cincinnati, OH in late November and continue through December. This is a tour no millennial should miss and gives the perfect opportunity for fans who haven’t been keeping up with this duo to hear how their sound has grown over the years and the amazing artists they have matured into.
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