After months of delaying it due to not having the motivation, I am finally reviewing something. I attended the April 9, 2025 performance by Laura Jane Grace and her current band, the Mississippi Medicals, with supporting acts Rodeo Boys (who come from Michigan) and Melbourne, Australia's Alex Lahey. And what a night it was. A night that was so great that what was a few hours felt like it passed by in minutes and left me wanting even more. These are the best kind of nights when attending any gig.
Rodeo Boys were on first and they played around 8 songs or so. They were alright. Not necessarily my type of music, but their singer (Tiff Hannay, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns) engaged with the crowd quite a bit and one could easily see that they were happy to be playing for us and opening for Laura Jane Grace. The band's set was marred by a technical issue that resulted in a song being aborted and skipped over.
Alex Lahey was on next, and you know what? I think she's gained a new listener in me. She is not trans but does identify as gay, which meant that all three acts on the bill were fronted by someone who is LGBTQIA+ in some fashion. Her music sounds like a hybrid of pop and alt rock and it works really well. One of the songs she played ("Don't Wanna Know") is one of two songs she released at the end of March 2025 as an exclusive to her Bandcamp site (which can be found here) and all sales of these two songs during the month of April will be donated to Trans Lifeline. Yeah, I'm quite impressed with Alex Lahey.
Finally, it was time for Laura Jane Grace and her current backing band, the Mississippi Medicals (it's a weed reference). The band consists of Laura on guitar and lead vocals, Matt Patton (also of Drive-By Truckers) on bass guitar and backing vocals, Mikey Erg on drums, and Paris Campbell Grace (Laura's wife) on backing vocals. They started their set with "The Swimming Pool Song", a track from Laura's 2020 surprise release album, Stay Alive. Next came a couple of Against Me! songs, the classic "True Trans Soul Rebel" and the newer "Crash", followed by a lot of Laura's solo tunes done in rapid-fire succession. A highlight of the night came in the form of a new song, "Your God (God's Dick)", which Laura hilariously introduced as "a spiritual... a song about finding God in the most unexpected of places, in your fucking pants". This song has gotten a certain part of the population ticked at her, so she must be doing something right. The crowd behind me started getting super active during the Against Me! classic "Pints of Guinness Make You Strong" and they didn't let up the rest of the night.
I got Laura's copy of the printed setlist after the show, although it was taped to the stage pretty good and I had a little trouble removing it. All the songs are still present on it, though, which is all that matters. This was easily one of the best nights of my life and I want to do it again.
The full setlist:
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