On February 18th, 2025, Tipitina’s hosted an evening concert featuring local ska punk group Bad Operation, black hardcore punk outfit Soul Glo and experienced pop punk artist Jeff Rosenstock. Each of the bands from this assembled trio offer a unique sound crucial for carrying the torch of punk music, and their show at New Orleans marked the second date of Rosenstock’s “Hellmode Goes Down South” tour. Since their 2020 debut, Bad Operation has been touted for their self-dubbed “New Tone” sound that focuses less on distortion and more on revitalizing the two-tone sound crucial to the genre with a DIY attitude and New Orleans flare. Though their presence was all but expected for Rosenstock’s tour, they were a welcome addition to the lineup of talented modern punk groups.
Having first released their music back in 2015, Soul Glo have come quite a far away from their roots as a three-piece Philadelphia hardcore band. Their 2022 record Diaspora Problems garnered critical acclaim from music publications for the poignant, despondent lyrics combined with thrilling performances that combined hardcore punk with hip-hop flows and aesthetics. While a future album release from the group is still not yet in sight, fans are still eager for any chance to see the group live. In such increasingly turbulent times in the nation’s socio-political landscape, audiences have been eagerly lining up to watch the band in action, dishing out their musical assault of hardcore punk irreverence.
While a night of Soul Glo and Bad Operation was enough to draw me and many others in for this concert, it was Rosenstock that ended up drawing in a majority of the crowd. From his early punk days with the former bands Bomb the Music Industry! and The Arrogant Sons of Bitches to his solo projects dating back to 2015, Jeff’s contributions to punk are as extensive as they are significant. Along with the creation of his label Quote Unquote Records in 2006, the punk rocker has long been an advocate for DIY punk ethos and has helped foster a passionate community of pop-punk enthusiasts and bands. The combined musical power of all three bands promised a night of epic proportions and explosive punk anthems.
First up to perform was Bad Operation, who graced the stage with their signature New Tone sound. Though they only have one full-length record to their discography along with a couple of singles, that didn’t stop them from playing their heart out with the nine songs they had for their setlist. All but two songs that they played weren’t off their 2020 record: their 2023 single “What Keeps Us Moving” and a brand new song titled “You Don’t Answer My Calls.” Dominic Minix’s energy as a frontman was wonderfully met by his bandmates that night, including Daniel Ray on keyboard, Brian Petus on lead guitar and backing vocals, Robert Landry on drums, Greg Rodrigue on bass, and even Rosenstock himself appearing in the last two songs the band played on sax to liven up the audience even more. As expected, his unwavering support for newer ska punk groups translated into unbridled enthusiasm on the stage. Even if they had the briefest performance of the night, Bad Operation was a wonderfully excitable taste of modern ska punk that helped set the stage for the other acts to follow.
After Bad Operation’s set, Soul Glo announced themselves with a much more boisterous energy about them. The menacingly distorted opening chords of their first song “If I Speak (Shut The Fuck Up)” – eerily reminiscent of a doom metal song – was succeeded by a declaration of support for Palestine amidst the ongoing conflict by lead singer Pierce Jordan, always unapologetic and eloquently outspoken in his voice of anger. Soon after came the transition into their righteously raucous hardcore punk sound, courtesy of lead guitarist GG Guerra, touring bassist Winston Hightower and drummer TJ Stevenson, who also had their own stage presence about them even amidst Jordan’s crowd surfing and wild, coarse screams. Most of their setlist consisted of songs off their record Diaspora Problems, the majority of which the audience knew by heart as they screamed the lyrics in unison. Tracks like “Driponomics”, “Coming Correct Is Cheaper” and “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?)” got the most response out of the crowd (myself included), and the endless waves of guitar distortion and digital effects from Guerra’s laptop made for even more of an ear-deafening performance.
One of Soul Glo’s biggest strengths outside of their fusion of hardcore punk and hip-hop sounds is the lyricism from Jordan. Even if it’s easy to miss exactly what he’s saying from how intense of a performer he is, Jordan’s penmanship proves him to be more of a lyrical threat than most modern hardcore punk frontmen, pushing the band to greater heights as a result. There are very few punk bands that can get me quite as enthralled as Soul Glo can, and their comparisons to hardcore acts of old such as Bad Brains do not stop simply at their status as a black-fronted band. The urgency in the lyricism combined with their willingness to innovate the hardcore punk formula makes them a double sided threat that harkens back to the intensity of classic hardcore groups while also strengthening their unique sound, looking forwards as a band while scathingly critiquing the systems of oppression that are the targets of their ire. The impassioned vocals from Guerra on their last song “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass)?” marked the end of their time on stage, though it would surely not be the last that the audience saw of them that night.
After another quick intermission, Rosenstock took to the stage as he belted out the last few lines of the System Of A Down song “Chop Suey” playing in the venue during the break. Joining him were bassist John DeDominici, drummer Kevin Higuchi, keyboardist Dan Potthast and guitarist Mike Huguenor to provide the backing instrumental for the epic conclusion to the popular song. The display was met with thunderous applause as they transitioned swiftly to the first two songs of the night “WILL U STILL U” and “HEAD”, the starting tracks from Rosenstock’s 2023 record HELLMODE for which the tour is named after. While most of the setlist comprised of songs from the album (all but two off the record were played: SOFT LIVING and LIFE ADMIN), the assemblage of songs that night was both lengthy and well-spread, covering much of Rosenstock’s solo discography dating back to his debut record We Cool? in 2015. Not only did he perform many of the songs that I was personally excited to hear live, but he did so with the energy expected from an artist renowned for his playfulness in his tunes as he is.
After these first two songs, he humorously welcomed the crowd and wished them a happy “Husky Tuesday” as he started to play the next song “Scram!”, which was followed by two more songs off HELLMODE and the fan favorite single “Festival Song”. Throughout many of these faster songs were mosh pits of younger listeners in the crowd, a stark contrast from the intimidating moshes of older men at metal shows I’ve been to. The venue offered plenty of space for these younger rebel rousers to jump along to their favorite tunes and join in the beat with clapping across the audience. Once “Festival Song” concluded, Jeff made room for another humorous aside from the audience that he repeated three other times: the phrase from “Basket Case” by Green Day, “It all keeps adding up” and waiting for the audience’s response to finish. Though the audience never properly met the call and response, the laughter from numerous spectators communicated that they were fully amused and entertained with Rosenstock’s on-stage antics. This made way for the next songs of the night “USA” and “Yr Throat”, both of which coming from his 2017 album Post-.
While I consider Post- one of Rosenstock’s weaker full albums, the songs he chose off of it for that night’s setlist translated incredibly well into a live performance. Even with the calmer, ambient synth break in the middle of “USA”, the audience remained transfixed on the central performer, making for a soothing breather in between the lively pop-punk tunes. After the songs “Nausea” and “FUTURE IS DUMB” came another fan favorite track “Wave Goodnight To Me”. In the beginning of the first chorus, a loud, out of place voice rang out across the venue and stopped both performers and crowd members dead in their tracks. After a few seconds of confusion, Jeff laughed it off and identified it from Higuachi, who accidentally played a snippet saved from a DIY craft video on YouTube. Not only was it a hilariously unexpected moment in the performance, but Rosenstock decided to play off of it and start the chorus again as they let the video sample play out again. What was first an accidental mishap that rang out loudly in the middle of the performance turned into one of the more humorously memorable moments of the night thanks to Jeff’s quick thinking and constant on-stage goofiness.
After “Wave Goodnight To Me”, everyone but Jeff left the stage as he picked himself up an acoustic guitar to perform “Future 86”, one of the most beloved songs from his previous band Bomb the Music Industry! Though the accompanying musicians joined him soon after the song ended, this part of the concert made way for slower, smoother songs like “HEAL MODE” and “To Be A Ghost…”, the latter of which ended with the explosiveness and anthemic catharsis that fans love to sing along to. As the night went on, the clamoring voices of the audiences never seemed to lessen in loudness and continuously met the call to sing along to the catchy choruses they came to hear live. Dominic Minix later joined Rosenstock and company on stage for the song “Leave It In The Ska” and Soul Glo frontman Pierce Jordan made a brief return to the stage in another one of Jeff’s cheeky call and responses of Basket Case, and Jeff repeatedly made sure to give both bands their thanks and appreciation for performing with him that night.
After Jordan’s appearance came the song “9/10”, which was accompanied by a lone disco ball hanging from the roof. As it glamorously shone its speckled spots of light all over the room, bodies slowly swayed along to one of the laxer tunes on the setlist, which made for another highlight of the night. This was soon followed by the last two songs of the set, “You, In Weird Cities” and “3 SUMMERS”, both of which made for an excellent conclusion to the night in a grand swelling of chords and emotions that left fans screaming for an encore performance. Rather than giving the audience another song, Rosenstock came back with his fellow performers to perform three more tracks: his 20 second theme song for the cartoon “Craig of the Creek”, “Pash Rash”, and the proper closer “We Begged to Explode”. I felt compelled to go along with the craze and mosh along with the rest of the concert-goers in the center during “Pash Rash”, and the echoing of the audience in the last song going “All these magic moments I’ve forgotten” made for an epic finale that I’m sure I won’t be forgetting any time soon.
Once again, Rosenstock has shown audiences why he has endured in pop-punk for so long. Though his long performance certainly lived up to expectations for the crowd, Soul Glo and Bad Operation complimented his more straightforward pop-punk nicely with shades of punk rock that helped get the crowd excited for the main event. All three of these bands demonstrated not only their unique sound and talents, but they also showed their strong support for everyone else in a community of punk rockers that seek to uplift one another. While there is a sadness knowing that Rosenstock may be a while until his next outing in Louisiana, fans can rejoice in being able to see all three of these bands live across the South in the next few days of the month. Jeff Rosenstock will never cease to amaze in how relevant his voice has stayed for the past two and a half decades.
