When Brendon Urie announced the official end of Panic! At the Disco in 2023, most fans, myself included, weren’t exactly shocked. The writing had been on the wall for years, and deep down, we knew the band we once loved would never truly exist as it once did again. We now only have old grainy cam rips on YouTube to relive our fandom’s glory days.
So when the news broke that Panic! at the Disco would reunite at the 2025 When We Were Young festival to perform A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out in full, the internet practically combusted. Few records captured the chaotic, hyper-dramatic energy of mid-2000s youth like A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. That debut record, released in 2005, didn’t just introduce a band. It was the musical backdrop of a generation marked by eyeliner-streaked teen rebellion, and an anthem for every misfit who felt desperate for something theatrical, something strange, something unapologetically different.
It would be one last celebration of a bygone era and the album that kickstarted it.
Though as thrilling as the announcement has been for many past and present Panic fans, there’s an asterisk hovering over it. Panic!’s original lineup fractured almost 16 years ago, and fans have been very clear about what would make this reunion a real one: the return of Ryan Ross.
For the uninitiated, Ross wasn’t just the guitarist. He wasn’t just writing lyrics — he was the band’s creative pulse in those early years. A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out was, in many ways, his brainchild: a whirlwind of theatrical storytelling and circus-like arrangements that immediately set Panic! apart from the wave of My Chemical Romance-inspired acts of the mid-2000s.
Ross’s fingerprints are all over the record’s elaborate blend of emo theatrics and vaudeville flair. Without his influence, it’s hard to imagine songs like Lying Is the Most Fun… or I Constantly Thank God for Esteban ever existing.
The band’s second album, 2008’s Pretty. Odd., cemented his cult-like status among fans. While divisive at the time, its Beatles-esque harmonies and whimsical folk-rock detour have since been embraced as one of Panic!’s most daring and beautiful projects. But behind the scenes, creative tension was mounting. Ross, as the band’s lead writer for most of their work thus far, wanted to continue down that Pretty. Odd. path, reminiscent of The Beach Boys’ 1960s classics. Brendon Urie, meanwhile, leaned toward their debut’s sound: pop spectacle and mainstream polish. By 2009, tensions had boiled over, with Ross and bassist Jon Walker leaving to form The Young Veins, following Ross’s vision of 1960s-inspired pop-rock. Panic! was never quite the same.
Fans often describe Panic! in two eras: “Pre-Split” and “Post-Ryan.” Pre-Split offered two albums that echo with a uniqueness unmatched in today’s crowded alt-rock chorus. The latter may have thrived commercially — carried by Brendon Urie’s charisma and unmatched vocal range — but to many fans, it feels like an entirely different band altogether. With each project, Panic! seemed more like a Brendon solo act under the name. That’s not to say albums like Death of a Bachelor didn’t resonate with listeners, yet the co-created, almost literary heartbeat of the band’s early music was no longer there.
That’s why this reunion matters so much. When Panic! officially dissolved in 2023, it seemed like the book was closed for good. Fans mourned not just the end of a band, but the final nail in the coffin of any hope for reconciliation with Ross. Now, with A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out turning 20 and the band stepping back into the spotlight, the possibility — however slim — of seeing Ryan Ross rejoin is enough to set entire fandom generations in a frenzy.
For me, Panic! at the Disco captured something I’d been missing: the thrill of theater, the pulse of pop-rock, and the intensity of bands like Pierce the Veil. Even as recently as this summer, Panic! at the Disco became the soundtrack to my creativity, which was their first album; it was the anthem of a summer I spent rediscovering my love of drawing.
At its core, Panic! at the Disco’s story has always been about constant reinvention. From its messy, ambitious beginnings, to a band of friends turned stadium headliners, to a one-man project, and finally, to silence. This reunion cracks the door open again. It’s not just nostalgia. It’s a reminder of how much these songs meant and still mean to the people who screamed them into hairbrush microphones back in 2005.
Who knows? Maybe Ryan Ross will show up, guitar slung over his shoulder, ready to harmonize into Camisado one more time. Maybe not. But for fans who once thought they’d never see Panic! again, this festival set is already more than they ever expected. And if it really is the last hurrah, at least it will be one worthy of the fever dream that started it all.
