It’s the 21st century and people are still mad about mixed-genre tours. Why?

Inevitably with every tour or even smaller festival lineup, you’ll draw the people that are bound to complain about said lineup. Whether it’s that the newer hype band they love is opening a huge tour (omg this band should be headlining above established veteran acts!) or that bands and musicians of different genres come together, there’s always at least one complainer. It’s actually really silly, though.

It isn’t particularly difficult to understand, but we’ll explain a few reasons for them anyway. For starters, the chances are high that your favorite bands likely have music tastes that range outside of, say, metalcore. For example, Thousand Below’s James DeBerg has a solo R&B // pop project, Miss May I’s Levi Benton loves hip-hop, etc. Very few people (and especially musicians) listen to only the genre of music that they perform. Doing so would obviously be quite limiting to their art. You’d be surprised what you can learn from other genres of music, too.

There’s also more of a business side to mixed-genre bills, too. The most obvious one is that fans of the different genres on the bill are bound to check out the entire lineup, whether a known quantity or not. This also has the added benefit of increasing album sales, streaming numbers, and social media reach during the tour – with possible long-lasting effects after it’s over, too.

Take for instance, the recent completely sold-out tour from Bad Omens. Supported by Dayseeker, Make Them Suffer, and Thousand Below, the bands in question were all supporting new music (Bad Omens with TDOPOM earlier in the year, TB + Dayseeker with records released during the tour, and MTS supporting new member Alex Reade and a new song, “Doomswitch”). With new releases for each band being released surrounding the headlining tour, it clearly worked – as of January 18th, 2023, Dayseeker are reeling in one million monthly Spotify listeners, Bad Omens have now reached 3.1 million monthlies on Spotify, Make Them Suffer just hit 780k, and even Thousand Below’s well-received new album has helped them hit just under 420k a month (nice).

There’s also a component that can’t be measured by statistics or tickets sold. It’s possible that some of these bands and musicians are also friends in some capacity, whether on a personal level or a more professional one. Sometimes it’s even both.

So when a band like Wage War announces that an over-the-top heavy band like Spite AND a genius artist like nothing,nowhere. are touring together, maybe it’s time for people to re-evaluate whether getting genuinely upset over their favorite band touring with a band outside their genre is actually worth it. Spoiler alert: it’s really not. And someone like nothing,nowhere shouldn’t have to worry about whether he sticks out like a sore thumb.