Story of the Year and Senses Fail brought their co-headliner Scream Team Tour 2025 to the House of Blues Anaheim for a sold-out show on Friday, December 12 before wrapping it up the the next night in Riverside. This was the first time touring together for the bands, but they have a long history of sharing festival bills going back for years on Warped Tour. While Senses Fail didn’t play this year’s When We Were Young Festival, a teaser video from the festival amped fans up for the tour.

Opening the show was Armor for Sleep. Like Senses Fail, the band started in New Jersey and is down to one original member. However, vocalist Ben Jorgensen has always been the lifeblood of Armor for Sleep, like Buddy Neilsen is to Senses Fail. Jorgensen handles rhythm guitar duties, so he can’t cover the stage the way the co-headliner frontmen can. He makes up for it with his emotive vocals and expressions. Guitarist Erik Rudic and bassist Chad Sabo up the energy on stage. By the time the band ended the set with fan favorite “Car Underwater,” the audience was primed and ready.

The always fun and hilarious Story of the Year came out on Razor scooters and played a bit of “Chariots of Fire” as their intro. Then they launched into their new single “Gasoline (All Rage. Still Only Numb),” which may be their heaviest song yet. It’s a banger and could arguably replace “Until the Day I Die” as the fan favorite. However, the balls to the wall energy made it a perfect opening song. This band gets better every time. They sounded like a CD played through Marshall stacks. Somehow Dan Marsala managed to keep the vocals clean without sacrificing the pop-punk physical performance. A.R.S.O.N. will be out in February on SharpTone Records.

Senses Fail handled headlining duties on this date. Last year, the band played Still Searching in full at When We Were Young and Let it Enfold You on the New Jersey Vs. The World tour. This set devoted about a third of the set to each album. The rest of the set list was split between their catalog with fan-voted picks filling out the setlist. Nielsen didn’t give the perfect vocal performance of Marsala, but he made up for it with showmanship. Make no mistake, Nielsen isn’t just playing dress up and resting on his laurels. He’s having a great time up there, and it’s infectious. Senses Fail and Story of the Year will both be on the Emo’s Not Dead cruise in January.