Jeff Rosenstock and PUP’s Cataclysmic Rapture of Friendshipness

As a writer who mostly covers live events, I try to observe and report back with neutral eyes. I cannot do that when that focus is the music of Jeff Rosenstock.

Back in 2006, I found Rosenstock’s past project Bomb the Music Industry! (BTMI) on the music tracking site Last.fm. The name grabbed my attention right away and the first track I listened to was “Blow Your Brains Out on Live TV!!” a track inspired by the all too real R. Budd Dwyer who did that exact thing to avoid prison time in 1987.

The song was a beautifully chaotic mixture of electronic beats, guitar and yelling. Considering loud and fast punk music was all I wanted to listen to at that time in my life, and because of my penchant for hyper fixation, I listened to the then three BTMI albums constantly, added in Rosenstock’s prior ska band The Arrogant Sons of Bitches and listened to everything on Quote Unquote Records.

It wasn’t only the music that grabbed me but the DIY nature of it all. I listened to Laura Stevenson and the Cans, Pegasuses-XL and once tried to take Matt Kurz up on his public request for someone to host a house show on his tour for his one-man band The Matt Kurz One (I lived too far away).

Then my listening stopped. The stage of life where I researched music all night was replaced with a spouse and a kid. Then a second kid. Then throw in a third. I regret none of those things, but I am mad that I missed out on all the music released when I felt like there was no more room for it.

Even so, I always tried to keep the DIY idea alive in other avenues of life. Instead of waiting for someone to start something I wanted to be involved in, I started projects myself. Whether it was a charity run outside of a formal race or starting down the road of becoming a writer 14 years after I graduated high school; a time when I was supposed to do that, go to school for it and rack up debt.

When I finally came to, I realized what I missed from the discography of Rosenstock. There were three more BTMI albums, plus four records under his own name. That doesn’t include any of his work with The Bruce Lee Band or Antarctico Vespucci in a history of music collaboration that is unrivaled by most in the punk genre.

COVID-19 reminded me that I once loved concerts too, and Rosenstock, Slaughter Beach, Dog and Oceanator at the Beachland Ballroom in 2021 was my return to live music.

Since then, I do not know how many concerts I’ve gone to, but anytime Rosenstock and his band Death Rosenstock came anywhere close, I was there. Punk shows, acoustic shows covering Neil Young songs with Laura Stevenson or random mega ultra-shows seven hours away in Philadelphia with supporting acts like Sidney Gish, Chris Farren, Gladie and Diners.

This week, Death Rosenstock came through Ohio for shows in Columbus and Cleveland on consecutive nights. For over three hours, Ekko Astral, Death Rosenstock and PUP showed that it’s ok to have fun, and they had a lot of it. I was there for both.

Ekko Astral

 Tuesday night at Kemba Live!, the trio of acts made the venue a place I actually wanted to visit. The night featured an extra bump of excitement because my oldest kid tagged along with me for their first punk show. As we waited for Ekko Astral to start the night, I explained a mosh pit and crowd surfing to a teenager who has not had the privilege of seeing them at concerts for Mitski, The Beths and Taylor Swift.

Out of Washington D.C., Ekko Astral was a three-person act that I wish I could have seen last year when they came through Columbus on their own headlining tour. Seeing them open for Rosenstock and Canadian rock group PUP was icing on the cake.

Ekko Astral is not as loud and in your face as Rosenstock or PUP audibly, but the themes of music do not lack an ounce of intensity. The trio sings and plays about politics, crimes against their city, trans rights and more.

Led by bassist and vocalist Jael Holzman, Ekko Astral set the ground rules to take care of each other and a hearty warning to any fascists. Thankfully there was a lot of the first and nothing visible of the second. Fortunately, if anyone listens to lyrics, none of the three bands are too welcoming to those who lack empathy or human decency.

In a set of six songs, Ekko Astral split between their 2024 LP “Pink Balloons” and new tracks from an upcoming, unreleased, album. Before the switch, Holzman reminded the crowd what it is like in their hometown with federal agents and military members policing the streets.

Ekko Astral also got the pit going in a more inventive way than some bands who yell something along the lines of “I wanna see every f****** body move.” Holzman introduced “The Wall of Coming Togetherness.” Similar to the famous “wall of death” used by hardcore bands like Knocked Loose, Holzman wanted to focus more on life. Once the punk trio hit the beat of their third track, the two sides met and it lasted throughout the remainder of the short opening set.

Death Rosenstock

While Ekko Astral’s set stayed mostly the same in their spot as an opener for the dual-headlining tour, Rosenstock and PUP switched songs up each night. For PUP, it was mostly the same tracks in a different order. Death Rosenstock went with a few consistent tracks from his latest LP Hellmode, “Scram!” from 2020’s No Dream and “Nausea” from 2015 LP We Cool?, but everything else was different night in and night out.

That made each night a different experience. I felt rewarded for the miles driven.

Something I noticed back in the early aughts with BTMI’s music was how each album got a little less chaotic. It was still punk, but Rosenstock’s songwriting began to shine. At the time, I was a few years behind him in my own musical listening growth and I missed that hectic feeling. In hindsight, I grew with his maturing sound.

So, when Death Rosenstock came out for their 18-song set to the Friends theme song, what happened next was no shock. They did not come out with a blast of sound to hype up the crowd. They started playing at a slow drone that slowly built up to “You, In Weird Cities.” Then the set never really slows down.

Death Rosenstock covered seven albums, even a ska song from “SKA DREAM”, and also threw in a medley each night. On all the solo albums, Rosenstock connects songs so well that you think it’s one track, which is good and bad. Good because it sounds great and it’s bad if you listen to all of your music on shuffle or playlists.

In Columbus, it was “Melba” that went right into “Beating My Head Against a Wall,” one of my favorite pairings. In Cleveland it was “Snow Charges” into “Beers Again Alone” from his first album under his solo name called “I Look Like Shit.”

Across 18 tracks, including one new, unreleased, track that I missed the name of, it was as great as each previous time I’ve seen the band live. Death Rosenstock on their own gives every appearance that the band members are best friends and having a blast. From Rosenstock catching a maraca mid-song to the on-mic banter with bassist John DeDomenici, they seem to enjoy playing music live.

That’s probably because they appear to be friends before bandmates. Each time I’ve seen Death Rosenstock they have had the same lineup with Mike Huguenor on guitar, Kevin Higuchi on drums and Dan Potthast on a ton of other instruments like keyboard, saxophone, acoustic guitar and more.

Also, the idea of showing empathy at a show includes the band, so their early instructions, which Rosenstock also shares at each concert, was evident in Cleveland when someone got hurt crowd surfing. The band stopped until the obviously injured concertgoer could be helped out of the pit, bending down to make sure he was ok from their place on stage.

PUP

Out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, PUP is a four-person group with rising popularity in the rock genre. With a discography of catchy, guitar-driven, albums that feature all four members harmonizing through most tracks, it sticks out from the crowd.

Lead singer Stefan Babcock commands the stage with his unique higher pitched singing voice, yelling and how he leaps across the stage, and they are a band that does not slow down on stage.

Through 15 tracks, mostly consisting tracks from their new 2025 LP “Who Will Look After the Dogs,” PUP played their fan favorites like “DVP” and “Sleep in the Heat.” Also, four songs from arguably their most popular album “Morbid Stuff.”

It was the only album they mentioned explicitly on either night, and as soon as fans hear a song from the album start the crowd hits another level. In Columbus, Babcock told the story of why they made an album that consists of only songs about horrible things happening. He said it was 2019 and they felt like the world could not get any worse, which is laughable in a “laugh so you don’t cry” kind of way.

Before “If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will,” a track about not liking touring and wanting to end the lives of bandmates, Babcock alluded to how this tour, titled “A Cataclysmic Rapture of Friendship!!!!” did not fall into this song’s category. He also said it was rare that a tour does not align with it and before the night was over there was solid proof that he wasn’t blowing collective smoke up the ticket-purchasing public.

Babcock ended PUP’s set by telling everyone that it was about to get weird after his set-ending solo. With a spotlight shining on the vocalist and guitar player, his three bandmates left the stage while he played “Shut Up” off the latest album. In Columbus, he talked about how nervous he was to do it and the next night he called it “immersion therapy” that has hurt his ego over the first week of tour.

While he started it alone, he didn’t end it that way. Not only did his bandmates jump back in but so did all of Death Rosenstock.

Double Band

That segued into the encore featuring Double Band, the combination of Death Rosenstock and PUP, complete with their own makeshift banner that looked a lot like silver duct tape over an equally appealing dark gray cloth.

If you avoid online spoilers of concerts (which I do not), the multiple drum sets could have been your giveaway of the fun that ensued for the final five songs.

The bands took turns on the first four of those tracks, Rosenstock played some saxophone and threw his arms around like they had minds of their own. In Cleveland, a fan gave him a Double Band tank top that Rosenstock put on after “Hey Allison!” Before the final track, which I won’t share to keep the surprise, Ekko Astral joined in, Babcock put on a fan-created “Triple Band” shirt and there was no doubt that everyone on the tour was either having a great time, or at least had fun being around each other.

This tour cannot be missed, my own bias aside.