Throw those skinny jeans on.
Pop Punk Emo Night hits The Broom Factory in Kingston on Saturday, October 24, 2026, with five bands performing the catalogues of five beloved bands: My Chemical Romance, Jimmy Eat World, Modern Baseball, Billy Talent, and Basement.
It is an all-ages night built for screaming along like it is your own personal Warped Tour — and after two editions at The Mansion, the party is moving to a bigger room.
Whether you lived through the Warped Tour era or discovered this music through streaming, this is the rare show where everyone in the room already knows every word. Five bands from Ottawa and Kingston, five catalogues that defined a generation of guitar music, one Saturday night in late October with Halloween in the air.
Five Bands, Five Catalogues: How the Night Works
The format is the whole appeal. This is not a battle of the bands and not a variety showcase. Each of the five acts takes the stage with a single assignment: inhabit the songs of one band that defined pop-punk and emo for a generation.
The New Hires become My Chemical Romance for a set. Monach becomes Jimmy Eat World. Futura Free becomes Modern Baseball. Better Luck becomes Billy Talent. Neon Ghosthouse becomes Basement.
For the audience, that means five headliner-calibre sing-alongs in one night, with no filler and no waiting through an opener you did not come to see.
Think about the economics of it: five separate tribute shows would cost five covers and five nights out. Here, $15 gets you My Chemical Romance, Jimmy Eat World, Modern Baseball, Billy Talent, and Basement in a single evening, played by musicians who chose these catalogues because they love them.
For the bands, it is a different kind of gig — part tribute, part interpretation, part love letter. Cover nights live or die on commitment, and the Pop Punk Emo Night bills are built from bands already embedded in the Ottawa and Kingston scenes, players who grew up on this music and know exactly what these songs mean to the people shouting them back.
Nobody is sight-reading these songs. Every band on this bill has lived with their assigned catalogue for years. And because several of these pairings are returning from the 2025 edition — Monach on Jimmy Eat World, Futura Free on Modern Baseball, Better Luck back for another year — the interpretations have had time to settle in.
The New Hires Playing the Part of My Chemical Romance
The New Hires are an Ottawa indie rock band formed in 2020, and they drew the night’s most theatrical assignment: the songs of My Chemical Romance.
The band’s lineup is Max Trepanier on vocals, Phil Hulan and Aidan Morris on guitars, Arthur Araujo on bass, and Christian Lascelles on drums.
Their own music — documented on the EPs “Talking to the Walls” and “For All Seasons” — sits in the melodic indie-rock lane, which makes them a natural fit for My Chemical Romance’s catalogue: dramatic, hook-driven, and built for big choruses.
My Chemical Romance needs little introduction to this crowd, but the scale of the assignment is worth stating. The New Jersey band’s 2004 album “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” and its 2006 follow-up “The Black Parade” turned theatrical emo into arena rock, with “Welcome to the Black Parade,” “Helena,” and “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” becoming generational anthems.
The 2010 album “Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys” added a neon pop-punk edge, and the band’s reunion shows in 2019 and beyond proved the catalogue had only grown in stature. Performing that songbook is a vocal and emotional workout — MCR’s songs demand range, stamina, and total commitment to the drama, from the whispered verses of “Cancer” to the full-throated climax of “Famous Last Words.”
Trepanier and company have the indie-rock chops for the guitars-and-melody side of the catalogue, and the fun of this set will be hearing how an Ottawa indie band handles the most operatic songbook in emo. Expect the biggest choruses of the night, and expect the room to know every word.
Monach Plays Jimmy Eat World Note-for-Note and Brings it Home
Monach are a Kingston five-piece playing pop-punk and emo, and they are the closest thing this bill has to hometown heroes.
Formed in 2017 under the name Hot Knives, the band is fronted by vocalist Andrew Pitre alongside Curtis Nicholson, Wryan Doyle, Nick Deslandes, and Darren Koculyn.
Their sound takes cues from The Wonder Years and PUP — earnest, driving, lyrically direct — and they have shared stages with Gob, Arm’s Length, and Fucked Up.
In May 2025 they released the album “A Light to Guide You,” preceded by the single “Thank You, Chef.”
Their assignment is Jimmy Eat World, and it is a perfect match.
Jimmy Eat World’s catalogue is the emotional backbone of emo’s mainstream breakthrough: “Clarity” (1999) is the genre’s great cult classic, a sprawling late-night record that fans still treat as sacred text. “Bleed American” (2001) brought “The Middle” and “Sweetness” to radio ubiquity — songs that turned vulnerability into mass sing-alongs. “Futures” (2004) kept the momentum with darker, bigger anthems, and “Chase This Light” (2007) added polish without losing the heart.
These are songs built on exactly what Monach does well — massive choruses, vulnerable verses, and the kind of sincerity that cannot be faked. A Kingston band playing Jimmy Eat World to a Kingston crowd, in a year when the band has a new album of its own out, is the kind of booking that makes a cover night feel like an event rather than a novelty. Expect “The Middle” to be the loudest three minutes of the evening.
Monach have played Pop Punk Emo Night before, holding the same Jimmy Eat World slot at the 2024 edition.
Futura Free Plays Modern Baseball and Adds A Fresh Tinge of Emo to the Night
Futura Free is the solo-leaning indie, shoegaze, and emo project of Kingston and Ottawa musician Peter Luft, active since about 2018.
It is a resolutely DIY operation, with releases including “Unreal” (2019), “Reducer” (2021), and “This Reality” (2023) — home-recorded, emotionally raw, and deeply embedded in the small-room scenes of both cities. Luft’s project is the bill’s most left-field booking in the best way: a bedroom-emo auteur taking on one of the genre’s most beloved cult bands.
Modern Baseball, the Philadelphia band behind “Sports” (2012), “You’re Gonna Miss It All” (2014), and “Holy Ghost” (2016), practically invented the 2010s emo revival’s confessional style.
Songs like “Your Graduation” and “Tears Over Beers” are wordy, anxious, funny, and devastating, often in the same verse — lyrics that read like texts you should not have sent, set to guitars that sound like they are falling apart in the best way. It is exactly the register Futura Free works in.
Where the night’s bigger bands bring volume and theatre, Futura Free brings intimacy and specificity, and hearing Modern Baseball’s catalogue filtered through Luft’s shoegaze-leaning sensibility should be one of the night’s most distinctive sets. For fans of the emo revival, this is the deep-cut slot: the band the diehards will be watching closest.
Like Monach, Futura Free is a returning act, having played Modern Baseball’s songs at the 2024 edition. The continuity matters: Pop Punk Emo Night is building a repertory company, bands and catalogues paired up over multiple years, and the audience gets to watch those interpretations deepen.
Better Luck Plays Billy Talent and Share in Every High Note with the Audience
Better Luck holds the night’s most straightforwardly explosive assignment: the songs of Billy Talent, Mississauga’s punk-rock institution.
Billy Talent’s catalogue — the self-titled 2003 debut with “Try Honesty” and “River Below,” “Billy Talent II” (2006) with “Red Flag,” “Fallen Leaves,” and “Surrender,” “Billy Talent III” (2009), and “Afraid of Heights” (2016) — is built for rooms like The Broom Factory: fast, political, precision-engineered, with choruses designed for 250 people shouting in unison.
Few Canadian bands inspire the kind of loyalty Billy Talent does. They are one of the rare punk bands that broke through to genuine mainstream success in Canada without sanding off their edges, and a full set of their songs is a guaranteed pressure release — the moment in the night when the room stops singing along and starts shouting.
Sometimes a cover night is the introduction — and a band that can hold down Billy Talent’s catalogue for a full set has earned their place on the bill.
Billy Talent’s songs are among the most technically demanding in Canadian punk: rapid-fire drumming, intricate guitar work, and Ben Saulnier’s unmistakable vocal delivery, which veers from melodic singing to full-throated shouting sometimes within a single line. It is not a catalogue you take on casually, which makes Better Luck’s willingness to claim it either brave or very confident. The room will find out which.
Neon Ghosthouse Plays Basement
Neon Ghosthouse are an Ottawa five-piece playing emo-tinged alternative rock, active since 2021.
The lineup is Scott Martin, Zac MacDonald, Jack O’Sullivan, Jared Lance, and Stu MacFarlane.
Their debut EP, “Mercy Rule,” arrived August 11, 2023, and they have shared stages with The Dirty Nil, Rarity, Single Mothers, and Hotel Mira, and opened for Born Ruffians — a résumé that places them firmly in the heavier, sharper end of the Canadian indie-rock scene.
Their assignment is Basement, the Ipswich, England band whose run from “Colourmeinkindness” (2012) through “Promise Everything” (2016) and “Beside Myself” (2018) made them one of the defining guitar bands of 2010s emo and alternative rock.
Basement’s songs — “Covet” above all, but also “Whole,” “Promise Everything,” and “Be Here Now” — are about dynamics: quiet verses that detonate into choruses, melodic bass lines, and vocals that sound like they are being torn out. It is a catalogue that rewards bands who can play heavy without losing the tune, which is exactly the lane Neon Ghosthouse’s live history suggests they own.
A band that has held its own on bills with The Dirty Nil and Single Mothers will not be intimidated by Basement’s quiet-loud-quiet architecture.
Neon Ghosthouse’s own music, documented on “Mercy Rule,” lives in the same territory as their cover assignment: emotionally direct, guitar-forward, unafraid of a big chorus.
The Broom Factory: Kingston’s Room for Loud Nights
The Broom Factory, at 305 Rideau Street in Kingston, is the night’s venue, and the move there from The Mansion is part of the story.
The 2024 and 2025 editions both played The Mansion; the 2026 edition steps up to The Broom Factory’s 250-capacity room. For a cover night built on volume and communal singing, the room matters enormously — and a bigger room for year three signals an event outgrowing its original home.
Kingston’s live music scene has long punched above its weight for a city its size, anchored by Queen’s University’s student population and a downtown core packed with venues, and The Broom Factory sits in the middle of it: a proper concert room, built for loud bands and louder crowds.
The practical details are straightforward.
Doors are at 6:00 PM EDT and the show starts at 6:30 PM EDT on Saturday, October 24, 2026. The event is all ages, which matters for a genre whose fans now bring their kids — emo is old enough to be a family tradition.
No end time is published, but with five bands and a 6:30 start, expect a full evening.
If You Go: Tickets and Practical Details
Tickets for Pop Punk Emo Night 2026 are on sale now through Ticketscene. General admission is $15.00 CAD plus fees, sold as eTickets — one tier, no complications.
For a five-band night in a 250-capacity room, that is about as accessible as live music gets. Online sales end at 4:59 PM EDT on Saturday, October 24, unless the room sells out first, so buying ahead is the safe move for a night that has grown every year.
With the move to the bigger Broom Factory room, there is more space than the Mansion years — but a $15 cover night with this lineup is exactly the kind of thing that sells out on the day.
Ready to Scream Along Like It’s Your Own Personal Warped Tour?
Five bands. Five catalogues. One room, 250 voices, and the best sing-along songs of the last twenty-five years.
Pop Punk Emo Night 2026 is the rare event that tells you exactly what you are getting — My Chemical Romance, Jimmy Eat World, Modern Baseball, Billy Talent, and Basement, played live by bands who love this music as much as you do — and then delivers it at full volume. Three years in, with a bigger room and a lineup of returning veterans, this is no longer an experiment.
It is a tradition — one that turns the last Saturday night before Halloween week into the loudest sing-along in Kingston.
