We did it! We got through 2025! We may have been circling the drain there a bit and dragging towards the finish line, but we crossed it! When the year is long and difficult, remember that artists are always the ones shining a light. Thanks to our robust live music scene, a slew of touring acts came through and kept us holding on when times were tough.
Every year we like to highlight the most “badass” things we saw from bands in the area. This week, we’re focusing on the touring acts (the local acts come in a later article). Keep in mind, we didn’t say “best” or “coolest.” We said BADASS. Now, we didn’t get to every concert. There are a lot of shows that should be on this list that aren’t simply because we didn’t get to see them. So please take this, as always, with a grain of salt. Also, this post only focuses on Lawrence shows, not Kansas City. To no one’s surprise, there are a lot of queer-fronted acts on this list.
In the meantime, please enjoy this list of the most badass things we saw from touring musicians in 2025.
10. Ekko Astral at White Schoolhouse
This White Schoolhouse set back in October was a radical queer’s dream show.
Now, keep in mind that this is Lawrence. So it’s full of radical queers. Naturally, the home base for radical queers is White Schoolhouse. The DIY (or DIT, as they prefer to call it, for “Doing It Together”) venue hosted an all-trans-fem lineup (even the audio engineer for the show was trans). D.C. punk rockers Ekko Astral headlined the night, encouraging the audience to leave their depression at the door for the evening and lean into happiness (queer joy is essential in the fight for liberation). They proceeded to debut new songs, encouraged the audience to rally against where their taxes currently go (war), and spoke heavily about the militarized ICE presence they witnessed firsthand in D.C. Paired with Wichita’s Yae and Lawrence’s Vicar Amelia, this show stood out as a must on our list.
9. Pegboy at the Bottleneck
This was one of those nights where the lineup was just killer, but the crowd was sleepy. Luckily, Pegboy are forgiving and absolutely killer at what they do. The veteran punk rockers whipped the venue into shape by rallying the crowd into pit status. My favorite types of punk bands are the ones where you keep thinking “Is that guy gonna hit me?” and John Haggerty definitely gives us those vibes. Man, that guy is intimidating AS FUCK.
8. Mirador keeping rock and roll alive
Anyone who says rock and roll is dead can head straight to a Mirador show so we can prove them wrong! Mirador is bringing rock and roll to an entirely new generation. You should have seen their fan base at the Granada on a Monday night in Rocktober. These kids were just adorable. A good chunk of the crowd were made up of teens and their parents. One teen in the front row was even holding a sign that said “Skipped School To Be Here!”
Onstage, the two guitar greats battled it out. Jake Kiszka (of Greta Van Fleet) and Chris Turpin (of Ida Mae) gave us a sort of “dueling guitars” back and forth throughout the night, with plenty of room mid-set for drummer Mikey Sorbello to deliver a wild drum solo for the ages. Mirador invokes a nostalgic rock and roll sound, the kind of music that would be blaring out of your older brother’s van as he drove you to your friend’s house so you can play D&D in the basement, sending you off with a “Smell ya later, nerd.” It’s a sound bursting with old school masculinity which is wild considering that most of their fans are young women.
7. The Velveteers (again!)
We’ve had them on this list before. But trust us, The Velveteers deserve to be on it every time they’re in town. The band, on tour back in March supporting their album A Million Knives, thrilled The Bottleneck audience with a jaw-dropping stamina fueling guitar riffs and two unruly percussionists. The audience matched their feral energy with their whole chest right through the encore. They were joined by Girl Tones, a duo who honestly could give The White Stripes a run for their money, and charismatic local rockers Indra.
6. Japanese Breakfast shredding at Liberty Hall
Japanese Breakfast has mastered the duality of femininity. Girls are mysterious. One minute, she’s emerging in a clam shell, Birth of Venus style, shrouded in wispy white fabrics and softly crooning on her guitar. The next, she is absolutely SHREDDING under a sea of strobe lights. This is what it means to be a woman. Soft, intense, unpredictable.
Michelle Zauner cannot be contained to a binary identity. She encompasses all aspects of indie rock, from the crooning to the rocking out. She devours the identity, teaches us all what it means to be a woman commanding a sold-out audience onstage at Liberty Hall on a Monday. Her latest tour, touting songs off For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) is an incredible evolution from her last body of work with Jubilee. The stage production alone big enough to encompass her cultivating emotions, flooding the audiences with rolling gentle fog, enveloping them at various speeds depending on the pace of the song. It was like watching a dream come to life.
5. The Urge’s double-header
This was a real gem of a show for fans of ska. On a Friday night in September, The Urge played their first of two sold out gigs at the Bottleneck celebrating the anniversaries of two albums (The Gift of Flavor and Too Much Stereo), and it was one for the books.
We always say a band is only as good as their fans, and The Urge have some of the best fans around. People drove in from several states away from this show, some snagging tickets to both sold-out nights.
The place was just beaming with positivity. The fans were comparing band tattoos, swapping ska show war stories, and took care of each other as they moshed, thrashed, and jumped the night away (all while screaming the lyrics back at the band). It was a masterclass in band fandom, a welcome occasion for them since the band only books a handful of gigs from time to time. They were joined by local ska band Six Percent, who have been mainstays in the scene for decades (and gained some new fans themselves on this night).
4. Betty Who at the Granada
Queer and femme joy erupted at the Granada during PRIDE month earlier this year (though really, isn’t every month PRIDE month in our hearts?).
Betty Who, hot off an electrifying performance at World Pride in DC, stopped by Lawrence on her “Out of the Darkness” tour. Paired with two extremely good looking backup dancers, the athletic trio treated the excitable (and mostly queer) crowd to joyful choreography. It’s hard enough to sing perfectly with powerhouse vocals like Betty Who’s, but adding in nonstop movement and cardio was an impressive feat that can very well take your breath away (think Sporty Spice). There was no live instrumentation on this night, but there didn’t need to be. Betty Who and her dancers used every inch of the stage and paired the thrilling performance with an exciting light show.
3. Pinkshift brings queer rage to the stage
Lawrence got a healthy dose of East Coast hardcore with a good amount of queer rage sprinkled in when Pinkshift brought their tour to The Bottleneck in November. The trans-fronted band found themselves right at home during their first show ever in Lawrence, with fans doting on their every word. If you find yourself growing angrier and angrier every day with the state of politics and human rights, this was the band for you.
This is the type of band that can scream “Does anyone know what the fuck is going on? I don’t know what the fuck is going on anymore, and it keeps getting worse!” and be met with a WILD round of applause. The scream-your-feelings band came with racing guitars and explosive energy that was equally reciprocated by the crowd, resulting in a well-deserved encore and wall of death by the end of the show.
2. Agnostic Front / Murphy’s Law / Violent Way at the Bottleneck
The Bottleneck was really the place to be this year for some of the best hardcore bands in the business. Us old farts were THRILLED to see Agnostic Front and Murphy’s Law come through back in March. It took about one minute when we got there before we heard folks start reminiscing about The Outhouse (ugh) and the legendary shows that happened out there.
The only difference between the fans back then and the fans now is that they’re bringing their kids to the show, which is awesome. The beer was flying everywhere, but so were the small children (because they were crowdsurfing). Punk never dies in Lawrence, it just evolves and brings the kids along for the ride.
1. Die Spitz and Babe Haven tear up the Bottleneck
It’s those six magic words every music fan loves to hear that landed this show at the top of our list. “Girls and gays to the front!”
Die Spitz is every rock fan’s dream band. The Austin-base band’s live shows are can’t-miss events full of all your favorite things: musicians leaping off of amps, crowd surfers, a wall of death, circle pits… they even brought out a sword at one point. Because why not? There are no rules at Die Spitz shows, it’s a lawless land where the unruly vibe dictates what road you’ll go down throughout the night. Die Spitz are full of femme rage and absolutely DESTROY on their instruments. They’ve mastered what most musicians can only dream of: reciprocating their raucous energy with the crowd. My God, they really do go big in Texas.
They were joined by raging queers Babe Haven, who we firmly believe should headline their own set soon at the Bottleneck. Babe Haven sets are where you’ll find all the queer angry kids feeling empowered (so really, any regular day in Lawrence). The North Carolina rockers, like Die Spitz, were also living the dream of reciprocating their fans’ rebellious vibes, resulting in a rock show that was so stunning, we could have watched them further extend their set and been on Cloud 9.
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