By Danielle Capalbo, News staff

Correction appended

Pioneering power-pop outfit Jimmy Eat World paid high honors to nostalgia Saturday night, eschewing recent releases to tap into the heart-on-sleeve veins of Clarity and its 2001 follow-up, Bleed American. After club-ready sets from Philadelphia DJ Diplo and bright pop-rock from local band Guster, Springfest culminated with a heartfelt celebration of Jimmy Eat World’s throwbacks and B-sides.
The marquee for this year’s concert was technically split between Jimmy Eat World and Guster, but it clearly belonged to the Arizona-based emocore outfit, who played a high-impact full set then returned to the stage, by demand, for a three-song encore.
Their landmark emo release, Clarity, turned 10 years old this year, and to hallow the record, the band recently embarked on a namesake mini-tour. They even recorded an honorary live performance of all 13 tracks, plus two encores, slated for digital release tomorrow. That tour ended March 7, but anniversary ethos were thankfully well in tact at Matthews Arena, as they faithfully reproduced classics like ‘Lucky Denver Mint,’ ‘Ten,’ ‘Blister’ and ‘Crush,’ transforming the cavernous venue into an intimate space steeped in familiar emotions and one passionate sing-a-long after another.
It made no difference that the bulk of the band’s set list was penned nearly a decade ago; frontman Jim Adkins delivered every lyric with a fresh sense of passion and persecution in his trademark vibrato. And while the quartet pulled few rock-and-roll stage antics, there was no lack of feeling, thanks in part to another of Adkins’ live trademarks:’ convulsively emotional hair flips on cue with his poignant lyrics.
After blistering opener ‘Futures,’ Jimmy Eat World sampled every release since Clarity, including cuts like ‘Big Casino’ and ‘Always Be’ off their 2007 record Catch This Light. But they played smartly to their strengths; most of the audience first encountered the band at least eight years ago, meriting an adequately angst-ridden performance of ‘Bleed American,’ followed by ‘A Praise Chorus.’ Though their official set closed with the 2004 single ‘Pain,’ their encore tied up every wistful loose end:’ Adkins switched from electric to acoustic for a heartbreaking version of ‘Hear You Me,’ then punctuated the night with the pop-rock anthems responsible for propelling them into mainstream consciousness, ‘The Middle’ and ‘Sweetness.’
Perhaps the best thing about the show was its lack of pretentiousness ‘- it was exactly the earnest throwback any audience member could expect, unlike when emo peers Brand New played PIKEtoberfest a couple of years ago and neglected the overarching reality:’ They rode to prominence on a wave of adolescent hopes and dreams, and we like to relive those moments ‘-‘ preferably for the fleeting moment a concert allows. Meanwhile, Jimmy Eat World moves forward without forgetting ‘- or damning ‘- where they came from; while Springfest could have become a caricature of the past, it was an earnest reminder of how we got here.
College-rock outfit Guster set the stage for Jimmy Eat World; it was their first touring week in about a year and a half, lead singer Adam Gardner told the audience. The band brought the crowd to life with their infectiously happy-go-lucky strain of harmony-rich pop-rock. Opener ‘One Man Wrecking Machine’ gave way to hopeful renditions of ‘The Captain’ and ‘Satellite.’ Spirits only rose up with the blissful combination of keys and horns on ‘Come Downstairs and Say Hello,’ which itself evolved from clean-cut, radio-set pop into an extended jam session.
It wasn’t, by a longshot, the only Guster track that underwent a relative transformation for the homegrown group, known for their organic, tribal-inflected sound. Not only did their studio work translate resoundingly well to Matthews, but songs like ‘Come Downstairs’ and ‘Ruby Falls’ expanded to fit the size of the arena without losing any of their original appeal.
Guster relied significantly less on aged material than Jimmy Eat World, though they did infuse a mostly updated set with ‘Airport Song,’ ‘What You Wish For’ and ‘Fa Fa,’ which especially benefited from the apparently transformative sonic properties of Matthews’ size and the crowd’s energy. Their 2003 breakout single ‘Amsterdam’ made for the most upbeat, interactive point in the set, while the ballad ‘Hang On,’ from their latest release, Ganging Up on the Sun, summoned an arena full of swaying cigarette lighters.
Diplo kicked off the night to wild applause, perched to the left of the main stage in a DJ booth furbished with strips of color-shifting neon lights and a handful of panoptic strobes. His masterful handle on the turntables ‘- and the pristine translation of bass in his originals and off-the-cuff mash-ups ‘-‘ seemed, to an extent, wasted outside of a club. Before and between sets, most of the audience was sitting down, but that didn’t make it any less contagious.