I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 12, 2025] Car Seat Headrest

My son and I saw Car Seat Headrest three years ago (I can’t believe it was that long ago).  The show was terrific–singer Will Toledo was in a gasmask the whole night and the whole production was wild and intense.

Since that time, Will has suffered from long COVID.  Whether or not this impacted the delay in the new album (when he was other so crazily productive) it’s unclear.

But his new album was a big deal.  It was a concept album (the booklet apparently adds much depth to the album) and songs were over ten minutes long (Planet Desperation runs to almost 20!).  Before the show, I had checked and it turned out that this tour was going to be almost entirely the Scholars album.  And that proved to be the case.

The band came out, the crowd went nuts.  Before starting Will set some ground rules–be nice to each other; if someone does something you  don’t like and they ask you to stop, do it somewhere else, etc).  Incidentally before the show started there was a lengthy promo for hydrating.  A male voice who said he was with Car Seat Headrest, then went on to say he was Bradley Cooper, Tyler the Creator and Charlie XCX–all giving fact and stats about hydration.  It was pretty entertaining.

And then the lights (and the fog, oh so much fog) obscured the stage as they broke into CCF.  The band sounded amazing,  And, unlike last time, my son and I managed to get reasonably close to the stage, so that was fun (even if photos and videos were pretty much useless with the lighting).

Will spoke in between songs sometimes, introducing Deveraux which segued into Lady Gay Approximately.  There are some hugely catchy moments on this album, but there are also jamming moments–which sounds great but are hard to dance to, so the crowd was reasonably subdued during the non-singing parts.

Although everyone went berserk and sang along to The Catastrophe.  Mid song, they paused.  Earlier Will had said that if anyone was having trouble, to put your phone light on and they’d get help ASAP.  Someone apparently put their phone light on with no emergency and Will was kind bur firm saying to only use your light for emergencies.  Will seems like a genuinely sweet and caring person.  They resumed the song from the bridge and there was no further trouble.

Instead of playing the Scholars song Equals (the only song from the album they didn’t play), they played a new unreleased song called The Colossus (sung by guitarist Ethan Ives and Will Toledo) , which bodes well for whatever they have planned next.

Speaking of Ethan Ives, he was so much fun to watch as he was a wildman, rocking around, bouncing and ripping will solos.  What was most amusing to me was that whenever Ethan did something like sing or wail a solo, Will stood almost entirely still–no swaying, simply still.  Incredible self control on that guy.

Bassist Seth Dalby didn’t say anything during the show, but his bass was great(ad he did rock a shaker during Planet Desperation) and Andrew Katz’ drumming was fantastic.  He had a brief speaking part during Planet Desperation, which the crowd went crazy for.  Speaking of the crowd, they were pretty darn good (and pretty short).  There was one guy in front of me who kept waving his Twin Fantasy stuffed animal in the air, which was just weird, but whatever.  Otherwise everyone was polite and friendly.

When they started Gethsemane, we all went nuts and sang along to the You can love again if you try again section. But it was when he played Druk Drivers Killer Whales that the guy behind me revealed just what a horrible singer he was.  And he made up for his lack of skill with volume.  I really wanted to get a clip of the song, but his voice was so loud and so bad that I didn’t even try to record any of it.  Awful.  Luckily he was recording the song but singing into his camera, so hopefully he listens back and realizes what a terrible singer he is and never does it again.

The stage setup was pretty basic,  Four panels hung from the back of the stage and every once in a while interesting creatures were projected on them like shadow puppets.  Compared to the last show it was remarkably low key.  But it was still cool.  There was a lot of good keyboards played by Ben Roth–lots of camera closeups of his hands.

Back to The Scholars.  Ethan Ives wrote much of Reality and he sang it–his voice is quite different from Will’s and it’s a nice contrast.  Then came the 18 minute Planet Desperation (which was stopped for a fan in the pit–but stopped at a natural breaking point).

When they ended the song, Will explained that normally they’d go off for an encore break, but that they had a curfew they had to be careful of, so they’d just start the songs.  I’m guessing the curfew is 10:30?

Will said that the final song would be a medley of older songs that they didn’t get to play very often.  Evidently this medley is called “The Story of Dives” (this page has an explanation).  I didn’t know most of the medley (which was largely from the My Back is Killing Me album), although the kid in front of me went crazy for Happy News for Sadness.

Everybody went nuts for Beach Life in Death (even a shortened version) and the way it segued into My Boy was pretty excellent.

They ended with True/False Lover which I didn’t realize was the end of the album (I had assumed they finished the album and were playing bonus songs).  But it was really fun to hear and that was that.

I managed to get a picture of the setlist from a young woman was was freaking out that she got one.  Speaking of freaking out, we arrived at the Mann Center before the doors opened (I’m usually walking in at the last minute, but I was afraid of traffic so we left really early and had Federal Donuts and then drove to the venue).  When we walked in, the merch line was outrageously long.  I was afraid we were going to miss the Lemon Twigs, but it moved pretty fast.  The merch was great with a shirt and a poster (and postcard) that was venue specific.  They did one for each show and I was sure they’d be sold out, but nope!

I’m not sure if the show wasn’t that well sold, but getting out of the venue was a piece of cake.  We didn’t even have to complain about the traffic, it was so light.  And we were home by 11:30.

A great show and a great night.

2025	2022	2018
CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You) ∇	Crows ξ	Waves of Fear (Lou Reed cover) (‘The Ending of Dramamine’ intro)
Devereaux ∇	Weightlifters Θ	Bodys ‰
Lady Gay Approximately ∇	Fill in the Blank⊗	Fill in the Blank ⊗
The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man) ∇  (stopped partially before bridge due to miscommunication from pit)	Hymn – Remix Θ	(Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem) ⊗
The Colossus	Hollywood Θ	Cute Thing ‰
Gethsemane ∇	Bodys ‰	Sober to Death ‰ / Powderfinger (Neil Young)
Reality ∇	Something Soon § (request)	America (Never Been) ⇔
Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales ⊗	Sober to Death‰	Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales ⊗
Planet Desperation ∇ (stopped partially for injured fan in pit)	Destroyed by Hippie Powers ⊗	Destroyed by Hippie Powers ⊗
this is where the encore break would be but they had a curfew so they just kept going	Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales ⊗	Something Soon § / Tell Me When My Light Turns Green (Dexys Midnight Runners cover)
Happy News for Sadness § / Stoop Kid § / Something Soon§ / Beach Life-In-Death ‰ / My Boy (Twin Fantasy) ‰ (no encore due to curfew) (part II of Beach Life-In-Death (FtF) only with alt. lyrics)	It’s My Child (I’ll Do What I Like) (Toy Bastard cover)	encore
True/False Lover ∇	Can’t Cool Me Down Θ (with Bartees Strange) (with Vincent ending)	Beach Life-In-Death ‰ (with Vincent guitar intro tease)
	Beach Life-In-Death‰
	encore
	Stop Smoking ‰

∇ The Scholars (2025)
Θ Making a Door Less Open (2020)
⊗ Teens of Denial (2016)
⇔ How to Leave Town EP (2014)
ξ Nervous Young Man (2013)
‰ Twin Fantasy (2011)
§ My Back is Killing Me Baby (2011)