Jack’s Mannequin’s “Made For Each Other” Tour Is A Triumph of Nostalgia

The last time I got to see Andrew McMahon perform in any capacity, it was 2012. I was 17-years-old and a junior in high school: around this time where I started bugging my parents incessantly for a ride into the city (I grew up in a suburb outside of Chicago) almost weekly, and almost ALWAYS to see a show at the House of Blues.

Back in 2012, McMahon was touring with Jack’s Mannequin, the band that released three albums between 2005 and 2011: before, McMahon was most known for his work in the band Something Corporate. And most recently, McMahon has been releasing music under the moniker Andrew McMahon in The Wilderness, crossing over into commercial success with the single “Cecilia And The Satellite” back in 2014.

With nine albums under his belt across three projects, as well a stint writing music for the TV show, Smash, (resulting in an Emmy nomination for the song “I Heard Your Voice in a Dream”), it’s safe to say that McMahon has been booked and busy for the last 20+ years or so. I just haven’t had the chance to see him tour since I first caught that magical show back in 2012 at the House of Blues in Chicago, which was during the People and Things Tour.

Once I discovered earlier this year that McMahon would be getting the band back together for a 20-year anniversary tour celebrating Jack’s Mannequin’s debut album, Everything In Transit, I knew that Staged Haze would have be involved in some capacity. The ‘Made For Each Other’ tour is also a celebration of 20 years since McMahon has been cancer-free: he was diagnosed with leukemia at just 22-years-old, eventually receiving a lifesaving bone marrow transplant from his sister.

I missed the pop-up show at The Venice West that came along with the announcement of the tour and I missed the show at The Wiltern, (we did photograph their stop in Chicago), but these missed chances for myself personally meant that their penultimate tour stop in Anaheim over the weekend was the last opportunity for me to end the 13-year-old Jack’s Mannequin drought.

I arrived to the venue just a few minutes after pop punk band Illuminati Hotties started their opening set. The LA-based band is headlined by producer, mixer, and audio engineer Sarah Tudzin, who has collaborated with artists like Logic, boygenius, and Porches. I was pretty shocked at how packed the 2200-cap room was for the opening act, but it goes to show how dedicated McMahon’s fanbase has been for the last two decades.

Beginning promptly at 9 P.M. with an intro video of the band’s history, including archival footage from a young McMahon, Jack’s Mannequin appeared onstage and quickly began with an opening performance of “The Resolution,” which happens to be one of my personal favorites. The band worked their way through their three studio albums, performing every song off of Everything In Transit, six off of The Glass Passenger, and four off of People And Things, notably giving the most love to the band’s debut album.

If you’ve been paying attention, you already know that nostalgia is very much “in” right now, across all genres. Artists like Hilary Duff are reviving their singing careers, Justin Bieber is headlining Coachella 2026 (his first major performance since 2022), and earlier this year, Oasis reunited for their first tour together since 2009. It’s evident that people want to revisit simpler times (even though I was a pretty emotional teenager during my Jack’s Mannequin phase), and hearing music that has been meaningful to us in the past, many years later, and oftentimes emotionally removed from the subject matter, can be a healing experience.

Andrew McMahon and the rest of the Jack’s Mannequin band understand this, identify with this, and thrive in this environment, which is why this tour has been such a triumph. The energy onstage is palpable from every corner of the venue: while McMahon often started songs sitting on the piano, he’d frequently jump out of his seat and bop around the stage to indulge in the crowd’s bliss.

Even though I am a VERY type-a person, down to studying a setlist by a band to prepare for a show when I already know ever single song, I have to give props to the band for switching up their setlist order (and sometimes swapping songs completely) to keep things fresh and make sure the audience is always on their toes. Nearly every song on the 21-song setlist garnered loud cheers from the audience, but it was evident that the favoritism skewed towards Everything In Transit. The album is in fact 20-years-old, and many of the crowd skewed between early 30s and 40s, a testament to the band’s impact on the millennial generation.

Revisiting songs like “The Mixed Tape,” “Bruised,” and “I’m Ready” were the evident crowd pleasers, and of course, “Holiday From Real,” a song that references the state of California on multiple occasions, received a LOT of love and shouts during the hook: “FUCK YEAH! We can live like this.” But we can’t forget the impactful songs on the other projects, including “Swim” from The Glass Passenger, a song that truly moved me to tears when I was a teenager, and “My Racing Thoughts” from People And Things.

Closing the hour-45 minute set was a highly-anticipated performance of “Dark Blue,” the band’s biggest song to date, known for appearing in the TV show One Tree Hill and getting a placement on Twilight author Stephanie Meyer’s inspo playlist while writing Breaking Dawn. Fun fact: she later ended up directing the music video for “The Resolution.”

Those opening piano notes can be identified immediately by any Jack’s Mannequin fans, and the crowd’s reaction solidified that even after all these years, “Dark Blue,” and the band as a whole has stood the test of time as one of the most influential punk/indie bands of the early 2000s. Many of us 30-somethings have had some sort of relationship with the indie music of our youth, but not many of us continue to revisit it or even seek it out in a live setting. But when we do, it’s special, and the feeling is palpable.