Hawthorne Heights Celebrate 20 Years of If Only You Were Lonely in Buffalo

Hawthorne Heights / letlive. / Creeper

***Hawthorne Heights -Town Ballroom, Buffalo, NY***

Twenty years later, If Only You Were Lonely still has plenty of life left in it. Hawthorne Heights brought the anniversary tour to Buffalo’s Town Ballroom, where longtime fans sang along to every word, while Creeper and letlive. offered two very different sets to open the night.

Creeper, letlive., and Hawthorne Heights made for an interesting mix at Town Ballroom as Hawthorne Heights celebrated the 20th anniversary of If Only You Were Lonely. Attendance was lighter than I expected, possibly with another major show happening just across the street, but the night offered three very different approaches to live performance.

Creeper opened with painted faces and a flair for the dramatic. Their theatrical presentation and dark aesthetic stood apart from the rest of the bill, giving the British band a distinct identity from the moment they took the stage. Their style felt a little unexpected alongside the other acts, but their commitment to the dramatic made for an interesting start to the night.

Next up was letlive., and vocalist Jason Aalon Butler wasted no time using every bit of space available. He raced across the stage before making his way to the balcony, where his microphone cord and eventually his body dangled over the railing. Butler put every ounce of emotion into his vocals, making the entire set chaotic from start to finish. When a fan went down in the pit near the end, he immediately stopped the show and jumped into the crowd to check on them personally.

Butler also took a moment to speak about Andy Williams, sharing a personal connection through his time filling in on vocals for Every Time I Die in 2015 when Keith Buckley was away for the birth of his daughter. It was a brief but meaningful moment in an otherwise relentless set.

When Hawthorne Heights took the stage, the room grew noticeably darker, with enormous LED screens providing most of the light behind the band. The heavily backlit setup left the members largely in silhouette as they worked through If Only You Were Lonely in its original track order. Released in 2006, the album helped establish Hawthorne Heights as one of the defining names of the mid 2000s emo scene, and the anniversary gave fans a chance to hear the record in full.

“Saying Sorry,” one of the band’s biggest hits, came early in the set, and the crowd needed no prompting to join in. Many in attendance clearly knew the album inside and out, with a full room of voices shouting the lyrics back toward the stage. There was no shortage of elder emos, and the response showed just how firmly these songs have stayed with their audience.

JT Woodruff took a few breaks between songs to talk about Buffalo and reflect on the album’s significance to the band and its fans. He also looked back at the 2005 Warped Tour era, when emo was taking off and several bands were gaining wider recognition. While some of his comments seemed aimed at getting a reaction from the crowd, the songs themselves spoke for the album’s lasting connection with the fans who were there singing along.