[DID NOT ATTEND: March 1, 2026] Peaches / Model/Actriz
I was really surprised when I saw that Peaches announced a show at Union Transfer. Although I see she did play there in 2022.
I don’t know very much about Peaches. I know enough to know that she is sex positive and very very explicit. I did think that this would be a fun show to experience once (like Gwar, but with very different fluids) but I already had tickets to see comedian Ed Gamble who I was really excited to see live.
Maybe if Peaches comes back in four more years I’ll try to see her. I’ve seen some clips from the show online and it looks pretty wild.
I saw Model/Actriz four years ago and really want to see them again. In fact, I found out about this show first because they were announced as the opening act. I think they were pretty much brand new when I saw them and I’m glad that they’ve been getting more popular. I do hope to see them again and it looks like they tour a lot more often than Peaches, so I’ll assume they’ll be back soon.
[POSTPONED: February 1, 2026] Dry Cleaning / YHWH Nailgun [moved to May 6, 2026]
Back in 2022, a family emergency prevented me from going to this show. I was interested in Dry Cleaning who at the time were a kind of trendy British band. They are of the spoken deadpan vocal/wild guitar noise variety. I thought they’d be fun to see live once.
They announced a new tour in February of 2026 and then announced it would be postponed
Dry Cleaning have rescheduled their imminent tour of North America, cutting a handful of dates and postponing the rest until May. The band cited “the increasingly hostile economic forces that govern touring” in a statement that you can read below.
We have had to take the difficult decision to move our Jan/Feb ‘26 US tour to May. This is due to a number of factors, not least of which the increasingly hostile economic forces that govern touring in the present day. Thankfully we have managed to reschedule the majority of the original shows and all tickets will remain valid, if that suits you, and refunds available if it does not. Regrettably, we have been unable to make this work for all dates due to the shortened routing. Refunds will be available from your place of purchase and we will do everything in our power to play for you as soon as we can.
The new date actually works out better for me and I’m looking forward to the show.
YHWH Nailgun (pronounced Yahweh Nailgun) is an American experimental rock band formed in 2020, known for their abrasive sound that blends elements of punk, noise, and electronic music. The quartet consists of vocalist Zack Borzone, drummer Sam Pickard, guitarist Saguiv Rosenstock, and synthesist Jack Tobias. They are indeed noisy and abrasive. I’m curious to see them do this live and I hope they are still the opening band in May.
I’ve known about Sudan Archives since her first album came out. I wanted to see her in 2020, but her show sold out. Then it was just before the COVID shutdown and her show wasn’t cancelled but hardly anyone went so I could have gone (but I didn’t know that and probably wouldn’t have gone anyway). I had a ticket to see her a couple years ago but didn’t make it. But then I finally saw her at All Things Go in 2023,so I was excited to get to see her again at her own show.
I had not heard of Halima, but she seemed to have some buzz around her. She came out looking fierce in a half jacket with huge shoulders. She had beads in her hair, marched out to the mic all by herself and started her backing music.
It was really impressive that she stood there with just the mic and her backing music playing as she sang her genre-unspecific music. I really enjoyed the spare backing sounds of her songs. omoge was a series of soft notes as she sang gently over them. Her second song (which I never found the name of) was a bit more bouncy with some deep bass notes.
I really liked the sounds of cocoa body–a kind of percussive melody accompanied by deep bass notes. Most of her songs were pretty short, but this one did have a middle instrumental section where Halima showed off her great dance moves.
Halima is British but she lives in Brooklyn. I loved hearing her talk–there’s something really cool sounding about the way British singers say Phillleeee. (more…)
[DID NOT ATTEND: December 18, 2025] Built to Spill / Guerilla Toss
I love Built to Spill. I’ve seen them half a dozen times and they’re always fun. Doug Martsch doesn’t really do anything in stage, except shred like a maniac, but somehow the shows are always fun. For the longest time I had seen Modest Mouse and Built to Spill the same number of times. But the last two Built to Spill shows I’ve had to miss for one reason or another. I was hoping to get BTS to catch up, but it didn’t happen. Hope the come back next year.
I had missed Guerilla Toss back in October when they did their headline show. So I was excited that they were opening on this Built to Spill tour. Although I missed a bunch of shows because of the surgery, this was the only one I was really bummed about.
[DID NOT ATTEND: December 13, 2025] Algernon Cadwallader / Gladie / Snoozer
Algernon Cadawallader has reunited and played a bunch of shows. Before they reunited I had not heard of them. But I had since listened to them and thought they sounded pretty great.
I haven’t been able to see them the last two times they were in town. But I secured a ticket for this show.
And then I had surgery and couldn’t even leave the house. I think I’ll give them one more chance and if I miss that one I’ll gibe up on them entirely.
I saw Gladie open for Otoboke Beaver back in 2023. Since then Gladie has been getting a good buzz about them, which is cool because they were really good. I would have definitely enjoyed seeing them again.
Snoozer is an “alternative group from philly. delco brothers make weird rock.” They play slow slacker rock.
After seeing Tyler the Creator earlier this year, I thought my daughter might also enjoy seeing Earl Sweatshirt, his former partner in Odd Future.
What was fascinating was that Tyler’s show was MASSIVE. He sold out Wells Fargo Center. He had two stages, lots of lights, and a whole routine. Earl’s show was at Union Transfer and didn’t even have a backdrop. There was no light show, just the venue’s lights. And all of that is totally fine, it was just such a contrast.
Earl had been on the stage for most of the night. Hanging out behind the DJ table, bouncing with the people around him. But I didn’t know it was him until he came out from behind the table and started his set.
I was fascinated at how short his songs were. Riot! is about a minute. gsw vs sac was just over a minute. He did 22 songs in under an hour.
Earl is a bit of a mumbler, but he has a lot of charisma and knows how to modulate his flow. and yet overall, it’s still a pretty chill set.
Like with the others, there were people walking around, filming, dancing, smoking. For Earl’s set a guy with a really big beard (Daryl, I think) walked around and got a shout out but didn’t actually do anything.
According to setlist, many of the songs were unreleased. So when the short songs ended (abruptly) the crowd had to take a second to respond. There was also a kind of pause where they played music and he talked to the DJ or something? Everything about the whole night just felt like a bunch of guys hanging out rapping. It wasn’t that it was unprofessional, it just felt totally relaxed and low key–much like Earl’s music. Like friends hanging out.
The biggest reactions came from his songs from SICK! and of course, Molasses from Doris was a big hit with crowd rapping along. Earl seemed to really enjoy the crowd for this song and they way they rapped back–“make some noise for yourself Philly.”
The tone picked up a lot when ZeLooperz came back out to rap on Vision and it made me laugh that Earl just kind of stood around watching him. Earl is very very chill. Then Cletus Strap came to the front and did one of his own songs while Earl acted out the lyrics somewhat–Earl has a verse on the record and did his own verse when it was time.
About half way through Earl’s set he recognized the DJ, Black Noise, who I don’t think was DJing all night. It was very hard to tell what was going on most of the time.
When he announced the song E.Coli the crowd was super psyched–I understand his record with The Alchemist is quite a favorite. It was pretty unusual for me to hear people rapping back at him. Not singing, but more or less talking. Fascinating.
There were at least two more medical situations (and it wasn’t hot in there or anything). Earl started talking about how y’all need to drink water. He also offered to buy granola bars for the city, LOL.
My daughter definitely didn’t enjoy this show as much as Tyler’s. And that’s fair–she didn’t know really anything that was played during the night and it was a long, non-stop night. She knows I hate to leave early even if the show isn’t going to change very much. She asked if we could leave in like 15 minutes, but I looked at the setlist and saw that the show was only going to be about 25 minutes longer, so she agreed to stick it out.
When he finished the set, it didn’t seem like he was going to come back out for an encore. I knew my daughter wanted to leave but I told her that if he didn’t come out in like a minute we’d leave. I always think an encore will be a fun ending.
Earl came out and did (apparently) one half of the song Quest/Power (he did the Power side). And that was that. His encore was about a minute. Crazy. I’m not sure it was worth staying, but on the plus side, we didn’t stay for merch, we got out really fast and were on the road in about 5 minutes. So we made up for most of that time, I think.
It was definitely up there with one of the least enjoyable concerts I’d been to. I assume if I knew more of the music I would have been more into it. I assumed it would be a fun show like Tyler’s (whose music I don’t really know either), but it felt more like I was a plus one guest at a party of close friends.
FiloTV recorded the whole set from the stage and you can see someone in the front row holding out vinyl for Earl to sign (I guess). For like the whole show (he didn’t acknowledge it).
SETLIST (I think)
Riot! § gsw vs sac £ FORGE King of Hearts (Unreleased) Warrior (Unreleased) 2010 ∇ INFATUATION £ 8/22 (Unreleased) Sirius Blac (Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist cover) Truffle (Unreleased) Fire in the Hole ∇ Molasses ‰ Azucar § Live £ The Mint § Vision (with Zelooperz) ∇ I’m Not Really Trying* (Cletus Strap song rapped by Cletus) E. Coli (The Alchemist cover) Gamma £ TOURMALINE £ Word to the Truest (Unreleased) Nowhere2go § Shattered Dreams § Exhaust £ (paused for medical emergency)
encore
Quest/Power [Power only]
£ Live Laugh Love (2025)
∇ SICK! (2022) § Some Rap Songs (2018) ‰ Doris (2013)
This is my third time seeing The Beths, a New Zealand band that’s taking the U.S. by storm. Las time they played here they sold out Union Transfer. This time, they sold out TWO NIGHTS at Union Transfer.
We immediately got tickets to night one and for the first time, saw them from a chair off to the side (thanks ADA seating). Although they interact so nicely with the front, that it’s kind of a bummer to not be in on the action.
But the sound was great (I know it always sounds better further back, but I like being close).
So The Beths are a four piece: Elizabeth Stokes, singer and guitarist. Jonathan Pearce who plays lead guitar. Benjamin Sinclair on bass and Tristan Deck on drums. They are delightful and funny and play fantastic songs. Liz is a great songwriter and the boys make divine harmonies.
Last time they played nearly all of their then new album. This time they played nine out of ten songs from their newest album. And they opened with the title track a bouncy song that had everyone delightedly singing along.
After the even punchier No Joy they played two older songs one from Expert and one from Future Me Hates Me.
Then they moved back to the new album with the super fun first single Metal.
At one point during these songs, Benjamin did something that made a tin whistle fly into the air which he caught and started playing. Later both Benjamin and Jonathan activated the tin whistle cannon and we were delighted to see them snatch the instruments out of the air and start playing. The also have some shakers in their songs. Liz uses a banana shaped one. If you go to Benjamin’s review of the following night, you can read about the amusing trick they played on Liz and her banana. (more…)
[DID NOT ATTEND: December 7, 2025] The Beths / Phoebe Rings
When The Beths announced that they were playing Union Transfer, I grabbed us two tickets immediately. My wife and I huge fans. The show sold out pretty quickly and they announced this second night.
It’s very rare that I would see a band two nights in a row, unless they really mix up their setlist. But The Beths don’t. So I had no reason to get tickets for this show too.
I enjoyed Phoebe Rings and it sounds like maybe they had a little more fun on their second night?
After seeing Tyler the Creator earlier this year, I thought my daughter might also enjoy seeing Earl Sweatshirt, his former partner in Odd Future.
After ZeLooperz, Liv.E (pronounced liv) came out. She spoke to the audience a bunch, said she had lost her voice in Vegas (Chris Angel took it).
Then the beats started and she changed things up by singing instead of rapping. She has a kind of quiet voice but she can scream as needed (even if she lost her voice).
I didn’t know any of her songs either, but some of them were quite pretty. Overall the set was back to the mellow vibe. I enjoyed it when she started singing the Schoolhouse Rock 12 song. (more…)
I hadn’t heard of Phoebe Rings and then I found out that she (I now know that Phoebe Rings is a band name and no one in the band is named that) was opening for The Beths on Saturday and Sunday and opening for Speedy Ortiz on Monday.
The Beths and Phoebe Rings are from New Zealand and, it turns out that Phoebe Rings and Speedy Ortiz are on the same record label.
Phoebe Rings began as the solo project of musician Crystal Choi, and is now a four-piece made of jazz students (guitarist Simeon Kavanagh-Vincent, bassist Benjamin Locke and drummer Alex Freer).
We arrived and had ADA seats. Then we laughed as the tallest person in the room stood in front of us. We could still see just fine, but it was hilarious how much taller he was than everyone else.
Phoebe Rings was delightful. They are described as dream pop but they were a bit more like jazz pop. I’d even go so far as to say they were like lounge music. There was an early Stereolab vibe musically (not lyrically). (more…)
I was really surprised when I saw that Peaches announced a show at Union Transfer. Although I see she did play there in 2022.
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