[ATTENDED: October 4, 2025] Neko Case
I have thought about seeing Neko Case since around 2022. I even had tickets to see her in Jersey City, but wound up doing something else that night.
She had played Ardmore Music Hall in 2024, but I felt the tickets were really expensive. And this show was the night after my son and I went to see Deltron 3030. But my wife won tickets to this show at XPNFest. And boy that was hard to pass up.
The biggest surprise was how undersold the show was. We have been to The Met a lot and this was the first time that I can recall that they had the back seats curtained off. Presumably anyone who had seats in the back were given seats closer to the stage. I never looked after the show started, but before Neko went on there were a lot of empty seats.
In fairness, White Eagle Hall holds 800 people and Union Transfer is around 1200. So The Met seating (and it was all seated) at roughly 3500 people was reaching way too far for her. But still that’s got to suck to see a half empty place.
And it felt like Neko was kind of mad for the show. Now, I follow her on Instagram and she seems (justifiably) mad most of the time. So I don’t know if that’s just what she’s like on stage or if she was in a particularly bad mood. I have only seen her one other time with the New Pornographers and she was only one of about 8 people on stage, so it was hard to judge her. Although after that show she had a lengthy rant about people filming her.
The most memorable moment of this show was when she yelled at someone in the balcony for having their phone light on while filming. She pointed at them directly an told them to turn their fucking light off. After the following song, she admitted that the light that was bothering her was actually from the aisle lights. I’m not sure if she apologized exactly but everyone laughed about it.
So yeah.
There’s a ton of Neko Case songs that I like. But there’s also a joke from a show that I can’t recall in which when a couple breaks up, she says to her ex that she hopes the next concert he goes to they play all new songs. It’s a great curse and it’s pretty much what happened here. (more…)
I saw Tropical Fuck Storm open for Modest Mouse a few years ago and their live show was fantastic. Being an opening act on a large stage wasn’t the best fit for them and I really wanted to see them at a smaller venue.
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