In 2023, I went to more concerts than I had the previous three years combined. It felt like the first real year of live music in a post-quarantine world, and everyone who’s anyone was on tour. But that hasn’t come without its hurdles, including artists demanding better venue conditions and less merch cuts, independent venues continuing to shut down across the country and, of course, the corruption of ticket sales and price gouging in massive markets. The gigging world is more complex and uncertain than ever before, but it still yielded some great nights of music. The Paste staff came together and picked their favorite concerts of 2023, including Bruce Springsteen, Lankum, Joseph, Aly & AJ, PJ Harvey and more.
Josh Ritter at Variety Playhouse, Atlanta
When Josh Ritter takes the stage at Atlanta’s Variety Playhouse, his smile is as wide as the sky back in his hometown of Moscow, Idaho. It’s not just that these are his first band shows since the pandemic took live music from us all. Playing concerts, especially with his longtime mates in the Royal City Band, has always produced that grin. That joy he feels on stage—from the time he walks out to play “Sawgrass,” the opening track of his brand-new album Spectral Lines, to his encore-closing concert staple “The Curse”—is contagious. Josh Ritter shows are celebrations, communions with the crowd who return his jubilation in spades. —Josh Jackson, Editor-in-Chief
Ratboys & Free Range at Rumba Cafe, Columbus
It’s not every day that I get to head out to a gig where the opening act and headliner are a perfect pairing, but the Free Range and Ratboys gig at the Rumba in Columbus this past September completely rocked my world in all the best ways. Free Range kicked the festivities off with an incredible set packed to the brim with tracks from their recent debut LP Practice. It’s always a good thing when folks are audibly in awe after you get off the stage. Steve from superviolet was there and we had a good time; the crowd was nearly out the door the entire time. It’d been a long time since I caught such a packed show at the Rumba, but I wouldn’t have wanted any other band to turn the northeast side of the city upside down. You really had to be there to understand just how unbelievable The Window sounds like, and I imagine fans at every stop on their long North American tour would concur. Julia Steiner, Dave Sagan, Marcus Nuccio and Sean Neumann ripped through tracks from every album, from Aoid through Happy Birthday, Ratboy. If you think a song like “Black Earth, WI” sounds good through a stereo, I can’t even begin to articulate how good it sounds side-stage through a couple of amps. Long live the rats, our greatest Midwestern shredders. —Matt Mitchell
Aly & AJ at the Riviera Theatre, Chicago
There are only a few artists that I have seen live in concert more than twice, and one of those few, special artists is sister duo Aly & AJ. Once best known for their Disney Channel fame and catchy alt-pop triumph “Potential Breakup Song,” Aly & AJ have spent the last six years making a new name for themselves in the indie space, and their latest album, 2023’s country-tinged With Love From, has only furthered their popularity within their corner of the music industry and stan culture.
I have seen them live four separate times (even twice in the same year, once) and each time they have blown me away with their production design on stage, their sheer presence, and the magnitude of their talent as they perform catalog-spanning setlists that capture both those just there for nostalgia and those invested in their current music. (If you attend an Aly & AJ concert only knowing their Disney-era tracks, you will absolutely leave that venue a convert to their new music.) Their With Love From Tour, which came through Chicago in April of this year, saw the sister duo playing their entire new album from top to bottom, alongside some Disney-era classics and tracks from their previous albums, a touch of the beat and Ten Years, alongside their EP Sanctuary.
At each of their shows, Aly & AJ are able to reinvent their music, pulling from their loaded back catalog to make older songs feel new and rejuvenated. They match the instrumentals to each new era, this tour infusing that slight Americana twang into songs like “Take Me” and stripping back “Church” from its more pop-forward roots. The sisters command the stage, effortlessly harmonizing against the backdrop of the live instruments they perform—whether it be guitars, pianos, or even tambourines. Dressed in matching blue jean outfits, complete with bellbottoms and bolo ties, Aly & AJ danced around a rug-covered stage in front of simple but beautiful light fixtures that backlit the duo and their band. Aly & AJ have an on-stage magnetism that continually brings me back to their concerts, always itching for that front row spot against the barricade.
It was a genuine delight to experience songs like “Talking in My Sleep” and “Baby Lay Your Head Down” live, and seeing crowd-pleasers like “Potential Breakup Song” in person truly never gets old. Aly & AJ are a must-see whenever they come to town, and this year’s With Love From Tour allowed the sisters to shine more than ever through their nearly 2-hour setlist. It’s been delightful to watch Aly & AJ blossom into the artists they’ve become, separate from their Disney days or their TV roles, and their performance in Chicago on the With Love From Tour felt like a victory lap for their success so far, and a way to usher in a new era of even more incredible music to come. —Anna Govert, Head TV Editor
Lankum at Vicar Street, Dublin
There’s no better way to spend your birthday than being reminded of ancestral trauma and the fleeting nature of life. Or at least, that was my thinking when I went to the acclaimed Dublin doom-folk group Lankum’s Vicar Street show with my husband and some of our friends as I turned 28. It was my second time seeing them at that particular venue, but it’s a testament to their musical alchemy that Lankum always give you something new when they play live. Made up of brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch, Radie Peat, Cormac Mac Diarmada, and a rotating cast of live musicians, these multi-talented artists swap instruments and vocal duties at the drop of the hat. While many of their songs are reimaginings of traditional tunes, adding drone and prog elements to classic folk, the number that hit me hardest that day was an original composition, off their 2019 album The Livelong Day: “The Young People,” all about suicide, friendship, and our ephemeral existence. How else are you meant to appreciate the simple yet improbable fact of being one year older? —Clare Martin, Assistant Comedy Editor
Rosie Tucker at Comet Ping Pong, Washington, D.C.
When it comes to the solo set of a singer/songwriter, there’s no better place to be than within touching distance of the stage, and that’s where my wife and I were fortunate to find ourselves for a treat of an evening from queer pop architect Rosie Tucker this fall. Selling out the cramped, sparse music room behind D.C. indie staple Comet Ping Pong, Tucker’s beguiling mix of indie rock crunch, sparkling pop hooks and witty lyrics were absorbed by an adoring, cramped mix of diverse listeners, most of whom could be seen mouthing every line along with the young singer. Tucker’s gift for eccentric melody was on full display on tracks like the beloved “Ambrosia,” which climaxes in a wailing progression of notes I’ve never heard echoed by any singer other than Rosie Tucker. They were technically in town promoting this year’s Tiny Songs Vol. 1, a quirky project of “songlets” that tend to run 45 seconds or less in length, but appeased that duty by turning it into a game, having the audience time them as they raced through the quick pack of ditties in about five minutes. That left more time for requests and deep cuts, with Tucker gamely committed to giving the invested crowd exactly what it wanted. The love in the room was real. —Jim Vorel, Food & Drink Editor
Wednesday at Ace of Cups, Columbus
Did any band have a better and bigger breakout 2023 than Wednesday? I don’t think so. On top of putting out the best album of the year, it seemed like they were on the road non-stop from January through December. On their summer tour, they came through Columbus and played at a venue that was much too small for them at this point. Ace of Cups is a fine place that, when empty, can be spacious and low-key. But when the most buzzworthy rock band took the stage just south of Ohio State’s campus, Cups was completely devoid of that space. Everyone was standing shoulder to shoulder; a few college kids even tried crowd-surfing (it didn’t work out). You could tell that the band—especially vocalist/guitarist Karly Hartzman—were worn out from a long slate of gigs. It was their final show before returning to Asheville to play a homecoming set, but the wear and tear of the road didn’t impact just how deeply Wednesday melted all of our faces. They blazed through tracks from Rat Saw God and Twin Plagues, even sneaking in a good cover of Gary Stewart’s “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin Double)” in the process. It was like a greatest hits showcase, punctuated by a brutal, deafening rendition of “Bull Believer” that made us all levitate and then, promptly, split in two. —Matt Mitchell, Head Music Editor
The Loneliest Place on Earth Festival, Philadelphia
Days before Loneliest Place on Earth Fest, I was wondering if I really wanted to take a bus to Philadelphia for a one-day festival. Had I not gone though, I’d have missed Action/Adventure and Origami Angel proving that nerds can sometimes be cool, Kississipi’s cherubic vocals and infectious dance moves, Anxious and Sweet Pill nearly bring the goddamn house down, and Laura Stevenson’s beautifully cutting words nearly making me cry right there and then. And of course I would’ve missed my first hometown show for The Wonder Years, a band that’s become my everything over the last decade, celebrating a life-changing record. Even when the festival quite literally went sideways, as a storm swept up tents and stands for planned vendors and activities, none of these bands ever let it stop them from putting on the show of their lives. Boy, am I glad I hopped on that bus after all. —Moises Taveras, Assistant Games Editor
The Lemon Twigs at Cheer Up Charlie’s, Austin
The Lemon Twigs’ time at SXSW got cut short because they had to jet off and open some shows for the Killers. Before leaving Austin, though, they made a pit stop at Cheer Up Charlie’s on a Tuesday night to introduce the crowd to their latest record, Everything Harmony, while also reminding them about the old stuff. After a late start due to technical hold-ups, the D’Addario brothers—Brian and Michael—were fully in their groove, sharing a wavelength no one else in the space could penetrate. They debuted then-new singles “In My Head” and “Any Time of Day” with melodic precision, but not before pulling out some reliable favorites, like “The One” and “Foolin’ Around.” It was a mixed-bag setlist, as the band played cuts from all four records in their catalog. Brian and Michael, in their matching striped shirts and bell-bottom jeans, looked inseparable and unstoppable on stage, surfing into tangential guitar solos. —Matt Mitchell, Head Music Editor
PJ Harvey at Warsaw, Brooklyn
On November 7th, PJ Harvey made her first appearance in the United States in over six years. She came to Brooklyn to share an evening of poetry, parlance and performance with an intimate crowd. The New Yorker’s Amanda Petrusich hosted the event, leading Harvey and her longtime friend and creative partner John Parish in a discussion about the creation of her 2023 Grammy Award-nominated record I Inside The Old Year Dying and her 2022 poetry collection, Orlam—on which the record was based. Harvey’s recitation of poems from Orlam brought the audience through a year of Ira-Abel’s life, beginning in the bitter cold of January, through the dog days of July and August, and back around to the transformed November and December.
In the cold autumnal air, her warm voice cut through the crowd. An ancient Dorset dialect converged in the ether with visions of Harvey’s childhood, held together by her Shakespearean lilt. The reading was soundtracked by an ominous ambience, the chirping of crickets, birds and the rustling of wind. Harvey blew the roof off the place before she even started singing. But Harvey never really settled into anything, though the ease and grace with which she played the set at Warsaw would have had you fooled. The five-song set was nothing short of breathtaking. It was an apparition of an Old English folk song. Her voice stretched and contorted itself on “I Inside The Old I Dying,” reaching screeching heights on the verses just to resolve within a deep, rich chorus. She used the thinning of her voice’s upper register to her advantage; the clarity of her sound was otherworldly, but her lows were a rich parachute guiding you quickly back to the ground. —Madelyn Dawson, Music Intern
BETWEEN FRIENDS at El Club, Detroit
On an October night in Detroit’s El Club, an old roommate and I stood waiting with a few hundred other people, chatting in the interim between the opener and the main act when the room went dark and strobe lights turned on, accompanied by Player’s “Baby Come Back” at full volume. The crowd, until that point fairly calm and attentive, lost it as L.A.-based pop duo BETWEEN FRIENDS finally appeared on stage. Comprised of siblings Brandon and Savannah Hudson and known for their synthy, almost bedroom pop sound, I’ve been following the dup since I saw them open for R5 10 years ago in Atlanta. But their performance in Detroit landed them solidly among the top three best concerts I’ve ever been to. The two used the night to play through the entirety of their debut album, I Love My Girl, She’s My Boy, an upbeat musical textbook about breakups and heartache that was wildly cathartic to dance to, plus a few of their other hits like “iloveyou” and “affection”.
The siblings worked undeniably well as a stage pairing, maintaining a balance of mellow and high energy that kept electricity flowing through the venue all night long, and the crowd responded kindly and enthusiastically at each turn. Any time I looked behind me, I don’t think I saw a single person not dancing or singing along—I was sore all weekend from just the same affliction. Brandon and Savannah were also remarkably interactive with their audience, taking time to chat, hold hands with and even dive into the crowd for dance parties, which spoke well of their love for their fans and such acts made the show feel intimate and unique. By the end of the night I was shocked that the walls of El Club hadn’t fallen in around me, but I was even more shocked by how tight BETWEEN FRIENDS’ performance was. They’ve been making music for well over a decade, but they have toured for far less than that. The siblings have the natural musical and performative talent of bands twice their age—I just hope I won’t have to wait another decade to see them again. —Maddie Agne, Games Intern
Huun-Huur-Tu at The Sugar Club, Dublin
My husband, our friend and I thought we’d arrived early enough to snag a seat at The Sugar Club (a dinner theater-style seated venue all decked out in red velvet) to see Huun-Huur-Tu, but we’d clearly underestimated the Irish public’s appetite for throat singing and Tuvan music. We crammed in at the back for a performance that genuinely left my mouth agape. Kaigal-ool Khovalyg, Sayan Bapa, Radik Tülüsh, and Alexei Saryglar played traditional Tuvan instruments and, most impressively, showed off their otherworldly throat singing skills (producing multiple notes at once). Some of my favorite songs were the ones that our friend described as being “for the boys”—with a clip-clopping beat and an occasional whinny, these tunes were meant to evoke the freeing comradery of riding horses with your mates. And yes, reader, I did purposefully wear a skirt covered in cowboys to mark the occasion. —Clare Martin, Assistant Comedy Editor
Joseph at 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C.
Four albums and just about a decade into their burgeoning shared career, sisters Natalie, Allison and Meegan Closner—better known to indie pop fans simply as Joseph—have seemingly reached a comfortable level of familiarity with both their fans and their art. Ostensibly, their June show at D.C.’s 9:30 Club was in support of their most recent album, April’s The Sun, but never did it feel like there was any such studio-mandated agenda, nor an imperative to favor any particular new material. Instead, Joseph treated fans to a wide-ranging set touching on every one of their previous recordings, especially thrilling on takes from breakout I’m Alone, No You’re Not and follow-up Good Luck, Kid. Joined on stage a few times by Nashville-based indie pop openers Sawyer (Kel Taylor, Emma Harvey), they dabbled in off-brand covers from the likes of Miley Cyrus and Rascal Flatts, swelling their already lush three-piece harmonies into a grandiose choir. At the end of the day, though, it’s the strength of Joseph’s central vocal bond that makes their live presence a stunner wherever they appear: Together, the Closner sisters carry each other to ecstatic heights, leaving audiences like this one in D.C. in a state of uplifted satisfaction for hours afterward. Post-concert chili dogs at the legendary Ben’s Chili Bowl is just a fringe benefit. —Jim Vorel, Food & Drink Editor
Numero Twenty Festival at the Palace Theatre, Los Angeles
Night One: Ui, Tsunami, Chisel, Karate, Unwound
Night Two: Rex, Ida, Everyone Asked About You, The Hated, Codeine
Let’s set some ground terms: yes, you can be nostalgic for music. Duh. But it’s not necessarily nostalgia driving you to see a favorite band from years past when they come through your town—or even making you want to drop hundreds or thousands of dollars to fly somewhere to see them play. You can be nostalgic for the era in which you first heard a band or song, for the specific situation in which you discovered it or general station in life you were embroiled in, but it’s not always just nostalgia that makes you want to listen to it however many years later. This is admittedly corny, but music is timeless and the properties that made you like a song or composition at one point in your life can still make you like it decades later, outside of whatever contexts in which you hear it. I’m old and based on experience feel comfortable saying that a song that sounds good to you will likely still sound good to you long after you first heard it. So wanting to hear and see a band play that song live is not in and itself an indication of nostalgia. Bills or festivals that cater to a specific era, though, with numerous bands from roughly the same time period sharing a stage? I figured those would pretty clearly drift into nostalgia territory, at least until I went to the Numero Twenty festival.
This is all probably very boring and obvious but it was fresh on my brain when I originally wrote that intro after attending the two-night show at the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles last February. This celebration of the prominent reissue label’s 20th anniversary lived in the space between feeling nostalgic for a specific place or scene and enjoying great music that just happens to be old. I was familiar with every band on the bill (except one) before the show, but the only one I’ve ever been a true diehard fan of is Unwound, who headlined the first night. I saw Unwound a few times in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, and seeing them again had me feeling nostalgic for those years; their set didn’t feel remotely old, though, and they were as fresh and invigorating as they were at BLT’s in Atlanta in 1996. (It helped that a mass of people rushed down to the stage after they started, making them the only band on night one who didn’t play to an entirely seated audience.) If I had never heard them before, had no connection to them, the power and ferocity of their show would have made me a convert, and I probably would’ve walked away with a few records under my arm.
Of the other nine bands, I was aware of seven back in the ‘90s. I heard them on college radio, often played them myself on the various stations I worked at, saw some of them open for other bands, and even owned a few records by some of them. None of them were among my absolute favorites at the time, and there are some I didn’t (and still don’t) especially like. So seeing them in 2023 was both nostalgic and not, with a general sense of longing for the youth in which I could’ve randomly heard or seen these bands tempered by my lack of familiarity with the specific songs they were playing. Of these groups Tsunami was the one I was most familiar with, and the one I was most excited to see; they didn’t disappoint, with “Genius of Crack” the non-Unwound song I was most hoping to hear. It came about halfway through their set, and typified the best of what indie rock represented in the early ‘90s: tunefully noisy, catchy but not cloying, and with lyrics that conjured strong images and emotions but weren’t overly literal or easy to figure out. Jenny Toomey’s band wasn’t as commercially successful as peers like Superchunk or Unrest in the ‘90s, but they represented the creative ideals of independent music as much as anybody else at the time, and the influence of their music and Toomey’s label Simple Machines was as crucial as that of the flagship bands behind Merge Records and Teenbeat. Seeing them play to a highly receptive audience 30 years later was one of the highlights of the year for me.
The other major highlight for me came on the second night, with a band I had never listened to until I was in my 40s. The Hated, a band from Maryland who helped laid the groundwork for emo and post-hardcore in the 1980s, played only their second show in over 23 years, following a warm-up gig in Maryland in January 2023. (Daniel Littleton, one of the band’s singers and guitarists, worked double duty that night; the band Ida, who he formed with Elizabeth Mitchell in the ‘90s, and whose folky indie pop dovetailed with the then-nascent “slowcore” scene, played earlier in the evening.) I had no nostalgia for this music, no personal history with these songs, and I didn’t need to; despite being written almost 40 years ago, they felt like they could’ve been written by a group of smart, angsty college kids a week earlier. From the blistering hardcore of “Somewhere,” to the pop-punk proto-emo of “Words Come Back,” to the crashing chords of “Anonymous Descriptions of Uncontrollable Urges” (more Husker Du than Devo, imagine a less insistent but just as powerful “New Day Rising” that switches on a dime into a wordless, yearning riff on “Celebrated Summer”), The Hated sounded as vital in 2023 as they must have back in 1986. There was no nostalgia here: just sheer power.
Also on the bill: slowcore pioneers Codeine closed out the festival beautifully with their languid, noise-drenched riffs; Boston’s Karate graced the first night with their thoughtful, jazz-inflected rock; and the festival kicked off with a fine set by Ui, the funky two-bass post-rock band featuring rock-critic Sasha Frere-Jones.
Numero Twenty pulled off a number of goals. It summed up the current direction of the 20-year-old label, who initially established itself with a number of obscure soul and R&B reissues before chronicling the history of post-punk and college radio from the ‘80s and ‘90s in its second decade. It entertained its audience of older heads and younger emo, slowcore, and post-hardcore fans with two nights of largely excellent music. It shined a spotlight on 10 bands that never quite got their due in their own time, some that have reached a larger audience today thanks to Numero Group, and others whose cult following from the ‘80s and ‘90s were thrilled to see them again (or for the first time). And it proved that just because a show is full of music from over 30 years ago doesn’t mean it’s purely nostalgia, or only of interest to fans who loved that music on the first go-round. Numero Twenty ultimately wasn’t my favorite show of 2023—our music editor Matt Mitchell has a lot to say about the band who earned that honor as soon as I finish this sentence—but it was the most unique and most memorable, and hopefully I’ll see something even half as powerful in 2024.—Garrett Martin, Senior Editor
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, Cleveland
I don’t go to stadium or arena shows anymore, largely because I can’t justify spending more than $100 on nosebleed seats where I’m watching the jumbotron more than I am the stage. But, for years, it had been my mom’s dream to see Bruce Springsteen play live—and I had long promised her that I would join. When COVID hit, we weren’t too sure we’d ever get the chance to cross The Boss off of our bucket lists but, luckily, he announced a string of shows and we immediately bought tickets.
When I tell you that, despite my strongest reservations about big venue gigs, Bruce put on a miraculous night that included tears, screams, drunk men falling over railings, a young fan getting his lime green arm cast signed and, of course, a living, breathing archive of 50 years’ worth of all-time tracks. As someone who is chronically ill, too, I was nervous about sitting through a show for more than three hours, but I survived and it was beautiful. He played all of my favorites, including a surprisingly moving rendition of “Backstreets” that bled into “Because the Night,” and his eight-song encore (“Bobby Jean,” “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run,” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” “Glory Days,” “Dancing in the Dark,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and “I’ll See You in My Dreams”) might just be my favorite music moment of 2023 across the board, albums, songs, trends and all. —Matt Mitchell, Head Music Editor