“BRAND NEW, 2000-2018.”

The Brand New live in Vancouver at The Vogue Theatre for tour kickoff June 1 2016

I first heard Brand New when I was 15.

I was your average teen, riddled with angst, looking for an outlet to channel my pubescent emotions.

Enter the Long Island quartet’s debut Your Favorite Weapon and, for the first time, I felt understood.

That feeling washed over myself and about a thousand others last night at The Vogue Theatre, where Brand New kicked off their Canadian tour. The venue was as abuzz as the band’s subreddit, with this being their first show since the cryptic announcement of their long awaited fifth album.

The set was heavy on 2006’s The Devil and God, but opened with lead singer Jesse Lacey alone onstage, performing the acoustic “Sealed to Me” before the band joined him for “Sowing Season” and “The Archers Bows Have Broken.”

That was followed by a triplet of Daisy tunes – “At the Bottom,” “Gasoline” and “You Stole” – before TDAG’s “Degausser” and a pair of Deja Entendu favourites “I Will Play My Game Beneath the Spin Light” and “Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t.”

Despite only a handful of older songs (and nothing off of YFW), the crowd maintained a feverish energy, matched by guitarist Vincent Accardi, bassist Garrett Tierney and drummer Brian Lane. The wild setting was further amplified by moshpit-starter “You Won’t Know” and last year’s distorted single “Mene.”

The band went back to TDAG with “Luca” into “Jesus” into “Limousine (MS Rebridge.” Around this time, Lacey appeared to have issues with his Music Man St Vincent Signature guitar, which might explain why he hucked it to the ground after their two-song encore of “Play Crack the Sky” and “I Am a Nightmare,” a bold move to end on their newest single.

Then, as fast as the house lights went up, they came back down and a graphic of an upside-down cross made of flowers lit up onscreen, accompanied by the words “BRAND NEW, 2000-2018.”

This is it, folks. Brand New is going to stay 18 forever, so if you don’t have tickets to tonight’s sold out second performance in Vancouver, consider driving to Calgary (which hasn’t sold out yet) or catching the band on their upcoming U.S. tour with Modest Mouse. Who knows if this will be their last time to Vancouver? (You won’t know.)

Brand New live in Vancouver tour kickoff photos by Jacob Zinn