When a band’s been around long enough to do a 10th anniversary tour for a classic album, it usually means they get to play bigger rooms than usual and the crowds go wilder than usual, and then when they get back to supporting a new album, it’s unfortunately not unusual to see those things downsize. (Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.) And it brings me a lot of joy to say that, for Foxing, the exact opposite just became true.
The last time I saw them was almost exactly one year ago, when they were playing their debut album The Albatross in full for its 10th anniversary alongside longtime contemporaries The Hotelier (who were playing their breakthrough sophomore LP Home, Like Noplace Is There), and I’m a little biased–a lot of people compare Foxing’s trajectory to Radiohead’s and I think The Albatross is very much their Pablo Honey and the combination of “Rory” and “The Medic” is their “Creep”–but that won’t go down as one of my favorite Foxing shows and the band didn’t seem particularly excited about playing that record either. It didn’t make me feel nostalgic for the first time Foxing and The Hotelier toured together a decade earlier; it just made me wish I was seeing them play newer material.
Fast forward to last night (10/29), I’m at Racket (fka Highline Ballroom) for the NYC stop of Foxing’s new self-titled album, and I’m watching Foxing put on one of the best sets I’ve ever seen them play in my 10+ years as a Foxing fan and getting what was maybe the craziest and moshiest crowd reaction I’ve ever seen them get. At one point, Conor Murphy acknowledged it from the stage: “To see such an active pit is a beautiful thing, thank you.” Their setlist was made up almost entirely of songs from the new album, and it was obvious that those were the songs that this rowdy, sizable crowd came to see. They did play “Rory” and “The Medic,” but this was the first Foxing show I’ve ever seen where it felt like they didn’t have to play those songs. It didn’t feel like the crowd was anxiously waiting for them the way it did when I saw Foxing touring other post-Albatross records. If anything, the reactions to those songs were a little more muted than they were for the new material.
Foxing opened the show the same way the album begins, with “Secret History,” a climactic opener that starts out as a quiet slow-burner before reaching an explosive screamo-infused peak, and as soon as it did erupt, the crowd broke out into the first of many pits. Screamo plays a bigger role on the new album than it has on any prior Foxing album, and those heavier moments were consistently the ones that energized the crowd the most and were the most fun to watch. The especially caustic “Hell 99” was a major, major highlight, but even the less-overtly screamo songs like “Greyhound” and “Spit” reached shrieky heights that were even more earth-shattering than they are on the record. There’s been a narrative surrounding the two previous Foxing albums that the band goes for broke and never gets as big as the music sounds like it should get, but as fate would have it, it looks like their raw, noisy, self-produced, self-released screamo-y album is making an even bigger bang than their swing-for-the-fences alt-pop anthems. (Those are great too, btw.)
Foxing albums all sound different from each other, but they also all sound distinctly like Foxing, and the band built last night’s setlist in a way that connected the dots between the new self-titled LP and key older tracks. Nearer My God‘s “Grand Paradise” couldn’t have sounded more perfect sandwiched in between “Spit” and “Greyhound.” Hearing “Beacons” from Draw Down the Moon and “Barking” from the S/T back to back shows off how much of a rocker the former is and how much of a pop song the latter is, even if the albums they’re included on are stereotyped otherwise. The drumless version of “Eiffel” from Dealer was the night’s quietest moment, and it had the same power as all those screamed climaxes.
Just as Foxing began the show with the self-titled’s introductory opening track, they ended with its piano ballad comedown, “Cry Baby,” which was just as perfect a closer in a live setting as it is on the record. They didn’t bother leaving the stage, but they presented “Rory” as the “encore,” and it was a nice sendoff to get one more banger. But, again, “Rory” wasn’t the moment the fans were all waiting for like it once was. At this point, I won’t be surprised if the show-ending banger on Foxing’s next tour is a song that’s much, much newer.
This whole tour had direct support from Foxing’s former Triple Crown labelmates From Indian Lakes (who are touring behind their new album Head Void), and every date of this tour had a local support band that was hand-picked by Foxing following open submissions. The Racket date had NJ’s Flycatcher, who just dropped their new single “Brother” on Will Yip’s Memory Music label a day before this show, and who you can catch again when they tour with Oso Oso this December. Pictures of all three bands by Rob Menzer continue below.
Foxing’s tour hits Philly tonight (10/30), Chicago on Friday (11/1), and then wraps up with a hometown St. Louis show on Saturday (11/2). Tickets here.
Foxing @ Racket – 10/29/24 Setlist (via)
Secret History
Spit
Grand Paradise
Greyhound
Gratitude
Eiffel (Stripped down version)
Hell 99
Looks Like Nothing
Beacons
Barking
The Medic
Nearer My God
Hall of Frozen Heads
Cry Baby
Rory
i wish i could be one of those accounts that tweets “this is the best foxing show i’ve ever seen” and then they get 400 replies saying “hell yeah” pic.twitter.com/4OvakOX3j3
— Andrew Sacher (@andrewdsacher) October 30, 2024