Emo and punk label Vagrant Records celebrates 25-year anniversary with Irvine show

The list of bands who have been part of this label would make a solid lineup for an emo and punk music festival.

Revered groups such as Dashboard Confessional, Alkaline Trio, Thrice, The Get Up Kids and many others have all been part of Santa Monica-based Vagrant Records. The label is now marking its belated 25-year anniversary not with a festival, but with a one-night show featuring several of the label’s alumni at FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine.

“We’re excited and honored to be part of it,” said Riley Breckenridge the drummer of the band Thrice, who along with Dashboard Confessional, Alkaline Trio, The Get Up Kids, The Anniversary and Hot Rod Circuit will play the May 28 show to honor the label’s milestone anniversary. The anniversary show was delayed a year due to the pandemic.

“We spent the better part of a decade on Vagrant Records and put out a lot of records that we’re really proud of with them, “ Breckenridge added.

The anniversary celebration also includes the new podcast “Vagrant Records: 25 Years On The Streets,” which is hosted by Matt Pryor of The Get Up Kids and talks about the history of the label.

The label was founded in 1996 by friends Rich Egan and Jon Cohen, who are no longer part of Vagrant Records, which was acquired by BMG in 2014.

According to Dan Gill, the general manager of Vagrant Records from 2002 through 2014, Egan and Cohen began the company from the ground up with a family loan and the goal of developing new bands that they saw as leading a new movement.

“They felt there was this need, this scene going on with this new wave of punk rock bands,” Gill said.

Things began to quickly pick up when Vagrant records signed emo greats The Get up Kids in 1999 and released the band’s breakthrough album “Something to Write Home About.”

“That was the record that put the label on the map for sure,” Gill said,

After the release of that album the label went on a hot streak signing acts like Saves the Day, Rocket from the Crypt and Face to Face.

“It was just an incredibly important thing going on. It was a new scene and they created their own community and culture with this new wave of music,” Gill said.

They also diversified their catalog by signing artists in other genres ranging from Paul Westerberg to The 1975 to Bombay Bicycle Club, as well as the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and PJ Harvey.

“They just had an ear for the right bands to sign,” Gill said.