Taking Back Sunday Is Gonna Make Damn Sure You Get Lost in Irving

The call comes through clear despite a basement line check happening somewhere in the background. Adam Lazzara, the voice that's soundtracked countless teenage heartbreaks and basement sing-alongs, is catching his breath before Taking Back Sunday's latest adventure—a co-headlining tour with Coheed and Cambria that stops at Irving's The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory on Sept. 10.

"I lived in Tyler, Texas, between our records [2006's Louder Now] and [2009's New Again]," Lazzara reveals, his connection to the Lone Star State running deeper than just tour stops. "A lot of the friends and folks that I made then, they're still friends to this day. There was something about Texas, its attitude or ethos, that just really spoke to me."

For a band that's been navigating the emotional landscape of American rock for over two decades, Taking Back Sunday's relationship with Dallas and Texas feels like a natural homecoming. From their early Warped Tour days to sold-out pavilion shows, the New York natives have found something magnetic about the Texas energy that keeps pulling them back.

The magic of Taking Back Sunday has always been about connection—those moments when a room full of strangers becomes a unified voice singing every word back at you. For Lazzara, this phenomenon takes on special significance in Texas, where the crowds seem to understand the band's mission on an almost cellular level.

"The world is really big and heavy, and I feel like the more of it that I experience, the larger and heavier it gets," Lazzara explains. "So, I'm often looking to get lost. And by getting lost, I mean just losing time, because it's like real world magic—real world Harry Potter stuff."

This pursuit of transcendence through music becomes “the dragon” he's chasing every night, and Texas audiences seem particularly eager to join the hunt. "To go and be able to have the space that feels safe and like you're free to just let yourself be whoever you need to be in that moment—that's the dragon I'm chasing. And hopefully that can translate to the people who are coming to the show, too."

The Sept. 10 show promises something special, bringing together three bands who understand the alchemy of live performance. Coheed and Cambria, Foxing and Taking Back Sunday share more than just stages—they share a philosophy about what live music can accomplish.

"One of the things I love so much about Foxing and Coheed is that they both understand that too," Lazzara says, referring to the transcendent power of collective energy. "You can see it and you can feel it when they're playing."

The pairing makes perfect sense when you consider the bands' shared geography and timeline. Taking Back Sunday and Coheed and Cambria both emerged from the New York area around the same time, with Taking Back Sunday hailing from Long Island and Coheed from Nyack. They've crossed paths numerous times over the years, building a mutual respect that goes beyond professional courtesy.

"We started pretty much around the same time, and we had the opportunity to tour with them in 2018," Lazzara recalls. "Since then, anytime we'd run into them, we'd be like, 'When are we doing that again?' To have a bunch of like-minded people—everybody's just kind of after the same thing."

What sets Taking Back Sunday apart in the landscape of early 2000s rock survivors isn't just their catalog of anthems—it's their commitment to the communal experience of live performance. Lazzara describes watching audiences that span generations, from 10-year-olds to 50-year-olds, all finding themselves in the same emotional space.

"When you're in a situation where you have people from every chapter of their life, and everybody's in a different chapter, but they're all getting lost, and all their energies go into the same thing at the same time—there's so much power in that," he explains.

This power becomes almost tangible during their live shows, transforming venues into temporary sanctuaries where the usual rules of time and space seem suspended. "When that amount of energy from that amount of people is focused in one place, you can feel it. Like when you walk into the room, you feel different."

Taking Back Sunday's latest album, 152, represents the band's most refined expression of its core mission. At just over 30 minutes, it's a concentrated dose of everything that makes the band essential—emotional honesty, melodic urgency, and hooks that burrow into your consciousness and refuse to leave.
Lazzara also believes in the power of language—sometimes sharp, sometimes vulnerable, always intentional. When our conversation turned to his knack for delivering the perfect curse word, he described them as “weapons” that should be wielded with care and purpose, not simply for shock value.

“If you can't come up with a way to say it without the curse word,” he reasoned, “then you gotta go back to the drawing board.”

On stage and on record, those rare, well-placed bombs crackle with extra electricity, wrapped into the catharsis of a crowd shout-along or the hush before a hook lands. It’s proof that, in the hands of a band who values intention and authenticity, every word—heavy or soft carries real weight.

As Taking Back Sunday prepares for their return to the Dallas area, anticipation builds not just for a performance but also for a renewal of the special relationship between band and city. The Pavilion provides the perfect setting for the kind of communal experience the band seeks to create: large enough for epic moments but intimate enough for genuine connection.

For longtime fans, Sept. 10 offers a chance to revisit the songs that defined crucial moments in their lives. For newcomers, it's an introduction to one of American rock's most consistently engaging live acts. For everyone in between, it's an opportunity to get lost in the best possible way.

Taking Back Sunday will perform on Wednesday, Sept. 10, at 6:30 p.m. at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, 300 W Las Colinas Blvd., Irving. Tickets are available starting at $29.50 on Ticketmaster.