A wide-angle live performance photograph showing pop-punk band Yellowcard performing on stage at Yuengling Center in Tampa, Florida on July 23, 2023. Captured from low in front of the stage, frontman Ryan Key leaps into the air with his legs spread wide atop a metal stage platform while playing a white electric guitar under bright yellow and orange spotlights. Behind him, bandmates perform on bass, guitar, and drums set against a backdrop illuminated with blue sky and cloud visuals.
Yellowcard plays Yuengling Center in Tampa, Florida on July 23, 2023. Credit: Photo by Phil DeSimone / Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

Your waistband is always there to remind you that Yellowcard‘s breakout LP, Ocean Avenue, is 23 years old.

While the Jacksonville pop-punk hero has a new album to share (Better Days, released last year), expect frontman Ryan Key, fiddler Sean Mackin & co. to lean into the nostalgia for this throwback edition of 97X’s Next Big Thing.

In classic NBT fashion, the lineup includes bands that play into the series’ 25-year history which started at Coachman Park.

Tickets to see Yellowcard, Waterparks, and Dylan Cotrone at The BayCare Sound in Clearwater on Friday, Sept. 4 are still available and start at $60.

Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.

Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | BlueSky

This article appears in Sept. 03 – 09, 2026.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...