[ATTENDED: December 17, 2025] Kevin Devine
I’ve been a fan of Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band for several years now. I first saw him opening a show and I really enjoyed his brief set. I’ve since seen him solo and with the Goddamn band. So when they announced that he would be playing a show at a Brewery fifteen minutes from my house, I grabbed tickets immediately.
And then my scheduled surgery was moved up from January to December 10. I assumed there was no way I could go. And yet, a week later I felt great and figured I could surely sit for 90 minutes. I reached out to Flounder and secured two seats and by midday I felt well enough to go.
Sadly, I am an idiot and never confirmed the start time. I thought it started at 8, but it actually started at 7:30 and it sounds like Kevin mingled and chatted with everyone. So we arrived around 7:45, embarrassingly after he had started. And we clearly missed ten or fifteen minutes. However, Kevin played 20 songs while we were there and finished a little after nine, so even if we missed a few songs, we still had a great night of music. [Turns out we only missed one full song, some of the second song and a 5 minute intro, phew].
The venue is outstanding as well with incredible sound (which Kevin said as well) and great sight lines. It was Kevin and his guitar and he played a selection of songs from throughout his releases. He also had some really funny stories peppered throughout.
So we walked in during him playing his two newest songs (May 2025). And then he played songs from most of his records.
Because it was a solo acoustic show, there wasn’t a ton of diversity, but that’s fine because each of his songs is distinctive in some way and for many of the songs he really shows off his vocal chops by stepping away from the mic and singing loudly to the room and then settling back in to his normal singing style. It brings a great moment of drama and catharsis.
Before playing Me & My Friends, he talked about Kurt Cobain when he said to an audience of some 70,ooo people that everyone was mean to Courtney Love and maybe people could say we love you Courtney. Which was so sweet (of Kurt). He then played the first line of Hole’s Amethyst and Olympia and said there’s nothing wrong with that record 10 out of 10 and I agree.
I’m not sure why it’s so fun when a singer messes up, but Kevin forgot the order of the words to A Story, A Sneak. He chastised himself and then sang it perfectly.
One of my favorite songs of his is Little Bulldozer and I loved hearing it. Same with Instigator.
Before Albatross, another fantastic song, he sais that we were allowed to sing along. This song has an amazing bridge that is so good to sing along with
Nothing venturedNothing gainedNothing matters anywayIf you’re frightened, stay awakePick a god and start to prayGood GaneshaShiva’s armsJesus Christ in camouflageIf you’re sinking, sing alongNothing’s real, so nothing’s wrong
Carnival is one of the songs where he screams his head off (for a moment) all while playing a beautiful, delicate melody.
He was very friendly with the audience, talking about people’s birthdays and what not. He joked about how weird the banter was before Another Bag of Bones in which he sang the opening to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air instead. Before singing a Bad Books song (the band he is in with Andy Hull) he sang the quick song “And Hull is Garbage” which the crowd loved. It appears to be a joke between him and Andy and the sing it about each other from time to time.
Kevin has a new band with Caroline Glaser of Brother Bird called Funambulist. He asked us to imagine Aishiteru, Yellow Blue sung by someone with a much better voice.
He also told a story about the band he was in in 4th grade called Arsenic. They didn’t play real instruments–just ones that played preset melodies. They broke up when one kid threw a dart at another. But he did sing a line from No Light in the Darkness–“no light in the darkness. ooh no light.”
He had been in a band called Miracle of 86 a long time ago and he played Every Famous Last Word after jokingly singing I wrote this before I was in steep decline. A reference to a post from a stranger who noted his steep decline (but didn’t say in what he was declining).
After a lovely version of Cotton Crush, he told a brief story about his daughter going to one of his shows (she’s ten) at a hotel in Cape Cod. The following morning while having breakfast he heard these old folks ask the waiter if there would be different music that night because they were expecting jazz and what they got was Neil Young (the old person is clearly the only one who felt that that was an insult). He ended with a lovely version of I Was Alive Back Then and them met fans in the corner.
We had a lovely chat. I was wearing my favorite shirt the one where Kevin Devine looks like a towing company and he was thrilled to see it. I told him I was only a week post surgery and he gave me a hug. A great show, a great guy. I can’t wait to see him again. Maybe even in Hillsborough again.
| 2025 solo at Flounder |
2019 with the Goddamn Band |
2019 solo at Boot & Saddle |
2017 opening Frightened Rabbit |
| Negative Convinction | All of Everything, Erased ß | Only Yourself | Daydrunk |
| God Is in the Numbers Σ | Carnival ß | Just Stay ¶ | No History |
| Laughing in the Ambulance Again Σ | Another Bag of Bones ß | Instigator ⇔ | Instigator |
| Not Over You Yet Ω | Hand of God ß | Longer That I’m Out Here | Another Bag of Bones ß |
| You are the Daybreak ⊗ | Brother’s Blood ß | Bubblegum | |
| Me and My Friends ¶ (story about Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love then played the openings of Hole’s Violet & Olympia) |
Fever Moon ß | You Wouldn’t Have to Ask (Bad Books cover) ≅ | |
| I Could Be With Anyone ß | It’s Only Your Life ß | No History | |
| A Story, A Sneak ∞ | Murphy’s Song ß | Little Bulldozer ⊇ | |
| Little Bulldozer ⊇ | I Could Be With Anyone ß | I Wrote It Down for You | No setlist online. I recorded these songs |
| Nobel Prize (Kevin Devine & The Goddamn Band song) Θ | Yr Husband ß | Carnival ß | |
| Instigator ⇔ | Tomorrow’s Just Too Late ß | I Was Alive Back Then ⇔ | |
| Albatross Ø | encore | Cotton Crush (with snippet of The Beers by The Front Bottoms) | |
| Carnival ß | Big Bad Man $ | Brother’s Blood ß | |
| Another Bag of Bones ß (jokingly intro’d the song with the first line of Fresh Prince of Bel Air) |
She Stayed As Steam $ | ||
| Andy Hull is Garbage ¥ | The Burning City Smoking ¶ | ||
| You Wouldn’t Have to Ask (Bad Books cover) ≅ | Just Stay ¶ | ||
| Aishiteru, Yellow Blue (new song by Funambulist, Kevin’s new band with Caroline Glaser) ∃ | Buried By the Buzz ⊗ | ||
| Every Famous Last Word (Miracle of 86 song) ‰ (Kevin sang a line from his 4th grade band Arsenic’s song No Light in the Darkness) |
Cotton Crush ⊗ | ||
| Cotton Crush ⊗ | |||
| I Was Alive Back Then ⇔ |
Σ = Split EP (2025)
Ø = Nothing’s Real, So Nothing’s Wrong (2022)
⇔ = Instigator (2016)
Θ = Bubblegum (2013)
⊇ = Bulldozer (2013)
∞ = Between the Concrete & Clouds (2011)
$ = She Stayed as Steam EP (2010)
ß = Brothers Blood (2009)
¶ = Put Your Ghost to Rest (2006)
⊗ = Split the Country, Split the Street (2005)
Ω = Make the Clocks Move (2003)
Circle Gets the Square (2002)
BAD BOOKS
≅ = Bad Books (2010)
Bad Books II (2012)
Daytrotter Session(12-inch/digital) (2013)
Bad Books III (2019)
II: Reimagined (2023)
FUNAMBULIST
∃ singles (2025)
MIRACLE OF 86
Stages (EP under the band name Delusion) (1995)
Teenage Unity (EP under the band name Delusion) (1996)
Render Useless/Miracle of 86 (Split with Render Useless) (1998)
Miracle of 86 (Fade Away) (2000)
Kevin Kolankowski (2001)
‰ Every Famous Last Word (2003)
Last Gasp (EP) (2005)
I Just Read About That... 
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