New Found Glory to Honor Late Guitarist Chad Gilbert During Shows at His Happiest Place on Earth

New Found Glory will pay tribute to late guitarist Chad Gilbert with a series of shows at his favorite place on Earth. In an Instagram post on Wednesday (Sept. 23), the group announced that following Gilbert’s death at 45 on Sunday (Sept. 20) after a long battle with cancer they will honor him by returning to the stage at EPCOT at the Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla. during the upcoming Eat to the Beat Concert series.

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“First off, we want to thank everyone for the overwhelming amount of love and tribute posts for Chad these past few days,” they wrote in the post. “Seeing how deeply he touched so many lives means everything to us, and we know he would be so proud to see it.”

As they process the loss of their longtime friend and bandmate, the group said they were canceling their planned appearance at the Aftershock Festival (Oct.1-4) in Sacramento in order to pay proper tribute to Disney superfan Gilbert at his happiest place on Earth.

“We rarely cancel shows but this felt needed,” they wrote. “Anyone who knew Chad knew that he was a massive Disney fan. 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. Because of how much he wanted to play these shows, taking the stage at Epcot feels like the right way to honor him, and what he would want us to do.”

Before Gilbert’s death, their plan was to announce the setlist for the Epcot shows ahead of time, which is why they posted it in their Insta announcement. “Every note we play and every word you sing at Epcot is for Chad,” they said. “Thank you all for wrapping us in so much love, understanding, and support as we come together to honor his legacy.”

NFG will play six different sets during their two-day run at EPCOT on Monday (Sept. 28) and Tuesday (Sept. 29) and perform such fan favorites as “Something I Call Personality,” “All About Her,” “A Love Song,” “Failure’s Not Flattering,” “Dressed to Kill,” “My Friends Over You,” “Hit or Miss,” “All Downhill From Here,” “Better Off Dead” and “All Downhill From Here,” among others. Bands play three sets a night during the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, which will also feature upcoming sets from Element and Smash Mouth, after earlier appearances from The War and Treaty, Yellowcard, Couch, Fitz and the Tantrums, MercyMe and Grupo Manía.

Gilbert’s wife, Lisa Cimorelli, announced the guitarist’s death over the weekend, six months after the pop-punk stalwart who co-founded the group in 1997 when he was just 17, revealed that he was fighting brain cancer, which followed a liver cancer diagnosis in 2021.

Also on Thursday, Gilbert’s ex-wife, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, paid tribute in a loving, handwritten note in which she said she did not know “what to say or if it’s appropriate. But I feel sure now that I want to bc life is made of the paths we cross and the reasons we cross them are infinite,” she continued. “Chad is indeed a legend in the scene and my time connected to him taught me a lot. He introduced me to people that continue to shape my life in beautiful ways, and to music and culture that has made life a lot richer.”

She lauded Gilbert for “what he contributed to the musical world a lot of us grew up in,” noting that his “influence and attitude guided the genre forward.” Williams and Gilbert began dating in 2008 and married in 2016; they separated a year later.