The Anniversary is a rock band from Lawrence Kansas. They have managed to conjure the pop song-writing skills of the Beach Boys while receiving about one-millionth of the attention. They currently have done splits with The Get Up Kids, Hot Rod Circuit, and Superdrag, have two 7"s, have one album out, Designing a Nervous Breakdown, and are about to release their second full length, entitled Your Majesty. They have also appeared on a bunch of comps. Right now, they are on Vagrant Records.
The Anniversary consists of:
- Joshua K. Berwanger: vocals, guitar
- Justin D. Roelofs: vocals, guitar
- Adrianne Alice Pope: vocals, moog, keyboards (also newlywed bride of Robbie Pope of TGUK)
- James David: bass
- Christian "Janko" Jankowski: drums
Together, these musicians can rock out on stage like they were born too. The songs are incredible, with choruses change to move the story forward, and incredible guitar and moog solos that would have you moshing up a storm if you weren't already caught in dumbfounded introspection because of the where the male-female lyrics hit you. I've seen them live three times, and every time they get a crowd of people so excited to be at a rock, they forget that they are emo kids. (EXCEPTION: when I saw them open for Dashboard Confessional, so many of the MTV punks were impatient for their set to end that they played an extra 3 songs just to piss them off, and then told them that they all sucked. It was funny.)
Their style of music tends to be classified as emo, but has also been described as synth-pop, indie, and college rock. I like to call it rock and roll. Rock on.