After over two hundred shows in the UK over his career as Less Than Jake’s guitarist and vocalist, Chris DeMakes is practically a local at this point. “I've never had a bad gig in the UK,” he declares when we caught up, but when he’s asked to choose his favourites, some sets and venues are just a little bit more special.
Main Stage @ Reading Festival 2002
Reading 2002 was just epic. That was one of the craziest shows that I’ve ever played in my life. I could probably speak for the band on that.
My mum and dad had come over, Roger [Lima, LTJ’s bassist and vocalist]’s mum had come over as well, and to look over and see your parents on the side of the stage when you’re playing to 80,000, 90,000… how many people were out there… At some point they broke into a circle pit around the sound board. I don’t know how many people were running around going crazy, maybe fifteen thousand people out there. We had never played in front of a crowd that big before, so it was the kind of lightning in a bottle that we’d always heard about Reading.
We were getting awards at that point, which was kind of interesting because we had been a band for ten years and we got the Best New Band award for Kerrang. I was like, ‘okay…?’ I mean, I was pushing thirty at that point. I was like, ‘I’ll take it all day long. This is great!’
In fact, we’d played Reading in 1999. Warped Tour had a tent at Reading and Leeds that year. That was our first introduction on UK soil, and we came back for our first headlining appearance on the main stage in 2002. It was awesome. It’s wild.
Old Trafford, Manchester 2002
We played in Manchester at the Cricket Stadium. The night before we played, David Bowie headlined, and then the next night it was Hoobastank, and then the band A went on, and then it was us, Green Day and then No Doubt headlined. This is before American Idiot. So we were in right in the middle of the pack and we were firing on all cylinders at that point, and our fan base in the UK was rabid. We went out that day, and no disrespect to A – great band. I really, I really like those guys – but we were just this energetic beast that just went out there that day and we had one of the probably the greatest shows I could ever remember.
Secret Fan Club Show @ The Garage, 2002
There was a show that we played at the Garage. I think it was like for fan club members only; it sold out like, you know, minutes, and my mom and dad were there and it was the most loyal of the loyal, I don’t know, five or six hundred kids crammed in that place going mental.
Boomtown, 2025
I got to give a shout out to Boomtown that festival just because there’s nothing else like that. I like it. I want to be honest with you, I can’t even remember what our show was like that day. I could probably find it online, but we are going back this year.
Just the spectacle of [Boomtown]… to walk into the Chinese section. Then you go to Mexico and they had these like cactus and stuff back there and you’d walk into what appeared to be a laundromat, and there’d be washing machines in there. But they weren’t working washing machines, it was a bar and then there’d be just [a bartender] sitting there. There might be one person, or it might be packed when you walk in that one. Then you go to the next one… it’s just a very, very unique idea. Evidently, they go out there about a month prior to put everything up.
London Astoria, 2001
The London Astoria shows that we used to do, they were epic and that was such a legendary venue to be able to play. My parents didn’t see us there but the guy that ran the door, he was out there all the time. I’m walking by [one day] and there he is. I said, “hey man, I play in Less Than Jake, I know you’re not open yet. Could I walk my parents through?” It was before some show they were having. He said, “no problem man, let me take them on a tour there!”