Best Old Guy Concerts I Attended for No Bells List of Lists 2025
10. Geese
Just kidding! I shoulda bought tickets at the beginning of the year when the primary market was 3D Country fans. Luckily tapers got me for both Thalia Hall shows.
10. Mk.gee
Michael Gordon may be 29 years old, but spiritually his music is the product of a Drakkar Noir bottle’s second marriage to a 6-CD changer.
9. Beck
Ravinia Festival backed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. ‘Nuff said.
8. Headhunters
Much like the modern incarnation of P-Funk, the group led by Mike Clark and Bill Summers now contains members that grew up playing along to their records, and those young cats are bringing all their friends out to the show for wine and CBD seltzers, even in the dead of winter.
7. Elvis Costello
Mr. McManus O.B.E. brought an expanded band and his weathered voice to the nightclub environs of Park West and told a charming story of a late ‘70s double bill in Chicago with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers that did not sell out.
6. TV on the Radio
The setlist was like the eighths I used to buy in college: too heavy on Seeds! Nevertheless, my favorite band of the 2000s still raises hell onstage.
5. David Byrne
David Byrne songs, 1977-1983: life feels like one big supermarket. When I close my eyes, all I see is a dead television channel.
David Byrne songs, 2018-present: some t-shirts have words, some t-shirts have flowers, when I see a shirt I like, I think of it for hours!
4. Herbie Hancock
From the balcony seats of the Symphony Center, it felt like we were listening in on the world’s greatest garage jam. “Rockit,” “Chameleon,” with plenty of time for guitarist Lionel Loueke to unleash some modulated madness, and Herbie even brought out the keytar.
3.. Bob Dylan
Just as the prophecies foretold, he got through two verses before I realized he was playing “Desolation Row.” As the band unfurled their post-industrial blues, I thought about all the history that led Robert Zimmerman from Minnesota to New York City to South Bend, IN on the same day as me, and I understood something deep and secret and true about America. Then we got our phones back out of those damn pouches and I forgot it.
2. Nine Inch Nails
Their idea of playing the hits includes b-stage piano ballads, dance remixes that reinvigorate classic tracks, and singalongs about fucking like animals. Trent Reznor is my model for my own golden years.
1. Stevie Wonder
Did America’s premier saint of pop music “fix our nation’s broken heart” with a rare Midwestern tour last election season? Not exactly! But Stevie still sings like the sun is shining out of his chest, and his show was a near-religious experience with orchestration and production value beyond any megachurch. There were people hugging and crying and video-calling their parents from “My Cherie Amour” to “I Just Called To Say I Love You.”