Jimmy Eat World closed Cardiff Castle's summer gig series with a 25th-anniversary performance of their album Bleed American, playing the record in full to a sellout crowd on Saturday night.
The Arizona band's set opened with a four-song prologue from their 1999 album Clarity, before the stage opened up to reveal a grander production for the main event.
A ferocious opener and a timeless hit
The title track Bleed American served as a ferocious opener, followed by A Praise Chorus. About 20 minutes into the set, the band delivered their biggest hit, The Middle, which has amassed nearly 1.4 billion Spotify streams over 25 years.
Your House and Sweetness followed, with Hear You Me slowing the pace and drawing tears from the audience. The second half of the album, including Get It Faster and The Authority Song, maintained momentum until the understated My Sundown closed the main set.
An emotional night at the castle
Frontman Jim Adkins appeared moved by the reception, recalling the album's unexpected success and the transition from "sleeping on floors one minute to Top of the Pops the next." He said, "We had no idea anybody would care," and noted the band wrote the album for fun, never expecting to fill a castle 5,000 miles away 25 years later.
The encore featured Disintegration, Pain, Big Casino, and For Me This Is Heaven, spanning their career before and after Bleed American. The show ended with 23, a sprawling epic that filled the castle with soaring guitars and a final singalong.
