Good Charlotte

Waldorf, Maryland, and a line-up that took three years to settle

Good Charlotte began in Waldorf, Maryland in 1995 around twin brothers Joel and Benji Madden — Joel on vocals, Benji on guitar. Bassist Paul Thomas came in after meeting Joel at a school homecoming, and guitarist and keyboard player Billy Martin completed the core line-up in 1998. That quartet has held together for close to thirty years, which is rarer in the class of bands they came up with than it sounds.

The drum stool has been the moving part. Aaron Escolopio played from 1995 to 2001, Chris Wilson from 2002 to 2005, and Dean Butterworth from 2005 until his departure in early 2025 — a twenty-year run that ended immediately before the band made their eighth record. Ian Longwell now occupies the position, and did most of the drumming on that album.

The records people actually bought

The self-titled debut in 2000 did little commercially. The second album, The Young and the Hopeless, released in 2002, did almost everything: roughly 4.9 million copies worldwide and 3.5 million in the United States, carried by "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", "The Anthem" and "Girls & Boys". It remains the record the live set is built on.

The Chronicles of Life and Death followed in 2004, shifting about 200,000 copies in its first week and reaching platinum certification, with a darker and more orchestral bent that split the audience the second album had won. Good Morning Revival in 2007 recovered the commercial ground — around 4.5 million sold, and "Dance Floor Anthem" became the band's last genuine radio standard. Cardiology arrived in 2010.

In September 2011 the band announced a four-year hiatus, and kept to it fairly literally: they returned on 3 November 2015 with the single "Makeshift Love". Youth Authority came in 2016 and Generation Rx in 2018, after which the band went quiet again for seven years while the Maddens concentrated on their label and management work and on television in Australia.

Motel Du Cap and what it did

Motel Du Cap, the eighth studio album, was released on 8 August 2025 through Atlantic Records — thirteen tracks and a little over forty-one minutes. The production was shared out widely: Jordan Fish, formerly of Bring Me the Horizon, and Zakk Cervini, whose credits include blink-182 and Simple Plan, did the bulk of it, with contributions from Johan Carlsson, Andrew Goldstein and Charlie Puth.

"Rejects" led on 25 June 2025, "Stepper" followed on 18 July, and "I Don't Work Here Anymore" landed with the album on 8 August. Four tracks carry guest vocals, from Wiz Khalifa, Zeph, Luke Borchelt and Petti Hendrix. It is the band's first album without Butterworth; Longwell plays on most of it and Svend Lurch on one song.

Reception was warm rather than rapturous. Kerrang! gave it four out of five; Classic Rock, The AU Review, laut.de and Stereoboard each settled on three. The commercial response was strongest in Britain, where it reached number three on the UK Rock & Metal Albums chart and number 18 on UK album sales, and number 40 in Scotland. The band marked the release with a Q&A and signing at Rough Trade in New York, then took it to festivals — Oceans Calling in Maryland and Aftershock in Sacramento — through early October 2025.

2026: Australia, an American co-headline, then Europe

The Motel du Cap World Tour opened properly in Australia and New Zealand in February 2026, with an arena show at RAC Arena in Perth on 17 February and an outdoor date at Auckland Domain on 27 February. Those were full headline sets, and the longest the band have played in years.

The summer was spent in North America co-headlining with Avenged Sevenfold across July and August 2026, with A Day to Remember also on the bill, plus a slot at Sonic Temple in Columbus, Ohio. Good Charlotte took the earlier of the two co-headline slots: Mystic Lake Amphitheatre in Shakopee, Minnesota on 27 July, then an East Coast and Southern run through August — Xfinity Center in Mansfield on the 12th, Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden on the 14th, Truliant Amphitheater in Charlotte on the 16th, MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre in Tampa on the 18th and Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas on the 21st, each scheduled as a roughly 75-minute set from about 7.45pm.

The European and British leg is the next thing on the sheet and the last announced stretch of the campaign. It opens at Hovet in Stockholm on 8 November, then Zenith in Munich on the 11th, Forest National in Brussels on the 13th, the Mitsubishi Electric Halle in Düsseldorf on the 14th, AFAS Live in Amsterdam on the 16th and the Zénith Paris — La Villette on the 17th, before The O2 in London on 19 November and Co-op Live in Manchester on the 20th. Yellowcard support throughout. Tickets went to pre-sale on 26 May 2026 and general release on 29 May.

The set, and the argument about it

Across the 2026 shows the running order has been close to fixed. The average set from 26 of the year's 27 logged performances runs nineteen songs, opens with "The Anthem" and closes the main set with "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous"; 21 of those 26 shows had no encore at all, the band simply finishing rather than going off and coming back. The headline dates stretch further — Perth ran to 24 songs across about an hour and 35 minutes, with "The Anthem" held back as the only encore and the set opening instead on "The River".

The weighting is heavily towards 2002 to 2007. "Girls & Boys", "Riot Girl", "Keep Your Hands Off My Girl", "Predictable", "The Chronicles of Life and Death" and "The Motivation Proclamation" arrive early; "Wondering" and "Hold On" slow the middle; "Dance Floor Anthem", "The Young and the Hopeless", "Little Things" and "I Just Wanna Live" close it out. That is the recurring criticism from reviewers: at Perth, despite the tour carrying the album's name, only three Motel Du Cap songs made the set — "Bodies", "Mean" and "Rejects". The reviewer who counted them noted the crowd did not appear to mind.

Production on the headline shows is more substantial than the amphitheatre slots allowed: geometric backlighting rigs, digital skulls on the screens, real and simulated fireballs, with Longwell raised on a riser stage right. Joel Madden works the lip of the stage and runs the singalongs; Benji Madden holds the middle. At Perth he told the room the opening three songs were the best three the band had played in years. Reviews from the American leg described the set as tight and energetic rather than reinvented, in front of a mixed-age crowd in both vintage and new merchandise.