A week on from the death of lead guitarist and founding member Chad Gilbert, New Found Glory will return to the stage for two tribute shows in the most unlikely of surrounds: The EPCOT theme park at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
The pop-punk veterans – who themselves are Florida natives – had been slated to perform at the park as part of the Eat To The Beat concert series prior to Gilbert’s death, with shows set to take place on Monday, September 28th and Tuesday, September 29th.
Taking to social media today (September 23rd), the band’s surviving members – vocalist Chad Pundik, bassist Ian Grushka and drummer Cyrus Bolooki – confirmed that those shows would be going ahead, and would now serve as a tribute to Gilbert.
“Anyone who knew Chad knew that he was a massive Disney fan,” the band wrote in a joint statement.
“Our shows at EPCOT were dates he was so excited for, and he was actively planning to be on stage with us there. He had already worked on the setlists with us, and was practicing as much as possible to be ready.
The band went on to note that playing the two EPCOT shows “feels like the right way to honor him, and what he would want us to do”.
“Every note we play and every word you sing at EPCOT is for Chad,” the band concluded. “Thank you all for wrapping us in so much love, understanding, and support as we come together to honor his legacy.”
Read the full statement, as well as the band’s planned setlist, below:
Gilbert had been off the road with New Found Glory since 2022, when he had to depart due to ongoing back pain. This was ultimately revealed to be the return of his metastatic pheochromocytoma, a rare gland cancer, which had originally been removed in a surgery less than a year prior.
The guitarist’s death on Sunday, September 20th, at the age of 45, was due to the evolution of the cancer into stage-four adrenocortical carcinoma – an aggressive form of cortex cancer.
Several guitarists were enlisted to fill in for Gilbert from 2023 onwards, with the most recent being Real Friends guitarist David Knox. He will join the surviving trio to perform at the EPCOT shows, alongside Four Year Strong’s Dan O’Connor on rhythm guitar and keyboards.
Following the news of his passing breaking on Monday, Blunt‘s Joel King paid tribute to the guitarist by describing him as “central to how New Found Glory sounded”.
“His riffs, backing vocals, songwriting instincts and command of momentum helped define the band from its earliest South Florida years through its rise as one of American pop-punk’s most durable names,” he wrote.
“His influence cannot be reduced to nostalgia, illness or a final performance. It lives in the musical vocabulary he helped popularise: hardcore’s physical force, pop’s directness, and the belief that speed and melody can sharpen each other rather than compete.”
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