Jeff Rosenstock Throws a Rock and Roll Birthday Party at Terminal 5
Jeff Rosenstock – Terminal 5 – September 7, 2023
It was Jeff Rosenstock’s birthday on Thursday and he celebrated with his band and thousands of raucous fans, playing the “biggest show we’ve ever played” at a packed Terminal 5. The mood was high-energy celebratory before they even took the stage, the crowd giddy with excitement, singing along with the preshow playlist to songs like “Life Is a Highway,” the band finally walking out (in birthday hats) to "Conga” by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, all but literally announcing, “Let’s get this party started.”
The ensuing 75 minutes was pure rock and roll party, beginning with “Will U Still U,” a mosh pit opening on the floor within seconds of Rosenstock singing, “Will you still love me after I fucked up?,” fully exploding in a frenetic drums and guitar breakdown mid-song. The night was also a celebration of Rosenstock’s just-released album, Hellmode, and the set leaned heavily on the new material with plenty of old favorites in the mix. The show was like the mosh pit itself, appearing aggressive from the outside, lots of love and heart and mutual respect on the inside. A flag behind the band mixed pride colors and weed-leaf icons with “666,” and that take-all-comers energy infused the music and the crowd’s jubilant enthusiasm. Lyrics like “They wouldn’t be your friend if you weren’t worth something,” in “Festival Song,” and “Don’t you pretend / The world is treating us all equal,” in “3 Summers,” gave the mind something to chew on while bodies slammed into one another.
Rosenstock slowed it down onetime mid-set for the almost-a-title-track “Healmode,” giving his songwriting a spotlight, the crowd noise falling to an impressive silence for a moment. But the rest of the night was an incendiary celebration, “Happy Birthday” being sung on more than one occasion and later teased in the intro to “You, in Weird Cities,” which built to a cathartic sing-along of “Whoa whoa whoa,” Rosenstock magically appearing upstairs at the back of the room on saxophone to coax the crowd along. The party went right up to curfew, as the best parties do, “We Begged 2 Explode” giving everyone one last chance to toast the birthday boy while he appropriately sang, “As we’re bouncing up and down trying to make the floor break / Stop sneering at our joy like it's a careless mistake.” —A. Stein | @Neddyo
(Jeff Rosentsock plays Roadrunner in Boston tonight.)
Photos courtesy of Mark Ashe | @markashephotography
