4/19 Spiritbox/Loathe/Dying Wish, MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Boston, MA
5/12 Kendrick Lamar/SZA/Mustard (DJ set), Gillette Stadium, Foxboro, MA
6/10 Queens of the Stone Age/The Kills, MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Boston, MA
6/27 FKA twigs/Koreless, Roadrunner, Brighton, MA
9/15 Between the Buried and Me/Hail the Sun/The World is a Beautiful Place and I'm No Longer Afraid to Die, Royale, Boston, MA
9/20 Turnstile/Mannequin Pussy/Speed/Jane Remover, The Stage at Suffolk Downs, East Boston, MA
10/5 letlive./Vanna/Hue, Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA
11/23 Dying Wish/Static Dress/Gouge Away/Orthodox/Boltcutter, Royale, Boston, MA
12/20 The Red Chord/The Number Twelve Look Likes You/See You Next Tuesday/Vomit Forth, The Sinclair, Cambridge, MA
Honorable Mentions: Kendrick Lamar, FKA twigs, Gouge Away
10.Mannequin Pussy:
The small amount of Mannequin Pussy I'd heard ahead of seeing them open for Turnstile in September didn't leave much of an impression on me. Their live show was a completely different story. The dynamism of their sound that mixes somber indie and angsty, angry punk together in surprisingly cohesive fashion really shines through in a live setting, and their stage presence is some of the most commanding I've seen in recent memory.
9.The Red Chord:
Any opportunity to see the long semi-retired Red Chord play is a treat. Getting the chance to see them play their 2005 classic Clients from front to back made this rare occurrence even more special. They're remarkably tight for a band that's only been playing a handful of shows per year for over a decade now and getting to see them play ripper deep cuts like "Upper Decker", "Love on the Concrete" and "He Was Dead When I Got There" live for the first time was surreal.
8.SZA:
While I had my gripes with how frequently she cut songs short and the wonky flow of the set brought on by the choice to have her and Kendrick Lamar rotate performing for the nearly 3 hours they were on stage, SZA sounded amazing and none of the power of her songs got lost in the massive environment of a football stadium.
7.Loathe:
Cue up the "I Get It Now" GIF from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia stat! After nearly 5 full years of being baffled by the hype around Loathe, something finally clicked in the weeks leading up to seeing them for the second time in less than a year and their show itself only further solidified how much of a dunce I was for sleeping on them for so long. They're effectively the millennial British metalcore answer to Deftones in the way that they seamlessly combine harsh and melancholic sounds to make immense, multi-layered songs that can have people in the pit one minute and standing around letting the emotions on display wash over them in the next. I regret not going to their club headlining tour in November, but hopefully they'll be returning stateside once their new album (hopefully) releases later this year.
6.Queens of the Stone Age:
This was the first show Queens of the Stone Age played in a nearly a year after Josh Homme suffered an undisclosed medical problem in July 2024 that caused them to cancel or postpone all of their remaining dates for the year and safe to say, it was a triumph. Their stoner rock sensibilities really soar when there isn't the buffer of a speaker to soften the edges of their grime-fueled guitars and Homme is one of the most entertaining frontmen in the game right now. Having their set open with the towering "Keep Your Eyes Peeled" and close with unicorn combo of "A Song for the Deaf/A Song for the Dead" close was the cherry on top of this beautiful return to the stage for QOTSA.
5.Dying Wish (11/23):
Dying Wish and a venue with no barrier or security in front of the stage is a perfect combination. The band kept the energy level high by plowing through a 50-minute headlining set with unrelenting dead-eyed intensity and the crowd rewarded their efforts by stage diving, crowdsurfing and moshing their asses off for the entire set. It's awesome to see one of the best bands of the metalcore revival movement continue to grow in popularity and inspire people to get rowdy as hell on a random Sunday night in November.
4.letlive.:
I was sincerely conflicted about going to see letlive. on their reunion tour as The Callous Daoboys happened to also being playing in the Boston area on the same night. While I remain very bummed that I wasn't able to see The Callous Daoboys on their headlining tour supporting my favorite album of 2025, seeing letlive for the first time since July 2016 isn't a decision that I regret making. Spending about 8 years away from the stage didn't extinguish any of the passion or madness that defined letlive. during their initial run as their shows continue to possess a level of unrelenting chaos that needs to be experienced to be believed. Whether this reunion is a one-off or a true comeback remains to be seen, but either way, this set was fucking awesome and letlive. will always be legends in my book.
3.Between the Buried and Me:
Seeing Between the Buried and Me for the first time since July 2018 felt like a reunion with an old friend that couldn't have possibly turned out better. The core members (Tommy Rodgers, Paul Waggoner, Dan Briggs, Blake Richardson) of the group being well into their 40's hasn't impacted their ability to play their incredibly technical music with a level of precision that makes their live performances basically indistinguishable from the studio recordings, they pulled out a couple of old cuts that I never expected them to play in 2025 ("Specular Reflection", "Extremophile Elite") and the material they played ("Absent Thereafter", "God Terror", "Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark") from their new record The Blue Nowhere immediately joined their stacked roster of songs that sound obscenely good live. I'm going to try really hard to ensure that it won't be another 7 years before I see them again.
2.Spiritbox:
Kicking off my 2025 concertgoing by seeing Spiritbox for the first time was one of the clear highlights of the year for me. Courtney LaPlante sounds unreal live (I'm retroactively mad that I never saw iwrestledabearonce while she was in the band) and the appreciation I have for the quiet intricacy of their instrumentation increased significantly after seeing them rip through 75-80 minutes' worth of material that covers a lot of ground musically. I'd urge anyone that isn't familiar with Spiritbox who is planning on going to see Evanescence this summer to get their early in order to catch their set.
1.Turnstile:
As Turnstile's popularity continues to significantly increase with each subsequent record they release, many people have attacked them from leaving behind their roots as a DIY hardcore band. Despite their increasingly mainstream output and upward trajectory that has put them in a position where they're only billed a few spots below Sabrina Carpenter at fucking Coachella, they still treat their shows like they're playing for a crowd of 50 punk kids somewhere in the greater Baltimore area. There are bands that are still struggling that don't play with even a fraction of the hunger and urgency that Turnstile brings to the stage on any given night and their ability to get a crowd whipped up into a frenzy is truly special. Simply put, they're an elite live act and it would be a deeply disheartening shock if a day arrived where that stopped being the case.
No comments:
Post a Comment