Taking Back Sunday playing surprise LI show to benefit Tommy Brull Foundation

Taking Back Sunday will play a surprise show Monday night in Rockville Centre to benefit  the Tommy Brull Foundation.

The concert at the 200-capacity RJ Daniels American Bar & Grill will be the smallest show in years for the Long Beach-based band, currently in the middle of a global tour to celebrate its 20th anniversary and set to headline the Great South Bay Music Festival in July.

“We’ve been trying to do something together for a very long time,” said Taking Back Sunday drummer Mark O’Connell, who has known the event organizer Martin Brull and his late brother, Tommy, since they were kids. “The foundation is a great thing, so we’re finally going to do it. It’s going to be really cool.”

Tickets are $80 and go on sale at noon Saturday at the bar’s rear entrance on Sunrise Highway, with a limit of two tickets per person. Proceeds will go to the foundation’s project to help build Mr. B’s Adaptive/Inclusive Playground in Rockville Centre, which would give children of all abilities a place to play together.

The concert will be the largest show ever in the foundation’s “Shine a Light Music Series,” fundraisers that have brought Kurt Vile, the Felice Brothers, Deer Tick and others to Long Island, with proceeds mostly going to Camp Anchor in Lido Beach. “I wanted to remember (my brother) in a positive light and raise money for good causes,” said Martin Brull, who established the foundation in 2007 in honor of Tommy Brull, a music-loving surfer who died in an accident in Manhattan in 1999. “I wanted to do something that was true to what my brother would like.”

O’Connell said Taking Back Sunday has wanted to support the foundation, which helps people on Long Island with physical and emotional challenges. “(Tommy Brull) was the kind of guy who would help but say, ‘Well, don’t put my name on it’,” O’Connell said. “He worked at Camp Anchor for a long time. He did good things for the community when he was around. He might not have wanted the credit, but he would be down for the cause.”