S SOUND

It just takes some time. Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride. Everything, everything’ll be just fine. Everything, everything’ll be just fine. Everything, everything’ll be alright, alright.”

Sound familiar? That song, “The Middle,” reminds me of the way Jimmy Eat World’s touring career has played out so far.

Jimmy Eat World became the sound of the Y2K emo-rock undercurrent with its self-titled album in ‘94, all the way to its 10th studio album, “Surviving,” in 2019. The four-piece Arizonian cohort of lifelong friends and musicians, Jim Adkins (lead vocalist/lead guitar), Tom Linton (rhythm guitar/background vocals), Rick Burch (bassist) and Zach Lind (drums), has been shredding the stage together for 30 years. This weekend at the Hayden Homes Amphitheater, Jimmy Eat World shares the stage with Manchester Orchestra.

The two bands cross-collaborated on dual covers of each of their songs to honor the tour. “Telepath,” written by Manchester Orchestra, was covered by Adkins. It's, “A bit more rocking,” Tom Linton told us during our interview. Manchester Orchestra covered “Table for Glasses” off of Jimmy Eat World’s ’99 album, “Clarity.”

Here’s an excerpt of Linton’s conversation with the Source Weekly.

Source Weekly: Tell me about your last memories in Bend.

Tom Linton: It was with Taking Back Sunday in 2021 at Les Schwab Amphitheater — crowd was great, it was nice being out in the open like that, not being in the city… I liked it.

SW: I’m sure you’ve got your tours down to a science.

TL: Oh, I don’t know about that, you should have heard our practice today.

SW: How’d that go?

TL: It was a little rough, but we’ll definitely be ready. We’re going through and fixing keyboard sounds and fixing parts.

SW: Have you guys really had the same lineup over the last 30 years?

TL: When we first started, we had a guy named Mitch Porter. He played on our self-titled record, but after that he left to do a Mormon mission. Then I was friends with Rick [Burch] who played in another band and everyone liked him!

SW: How has touring life changed since the early days?

TL: The early days were a lot easier because we were in a van. So we were able to stop if something was cool on the side of the road and hang out or run around or do whatever. But on these bus tours you can’t really do that ‘cause