Concert Reviews (206)

• June 16, 2025
• Colleen Johnson
• 189
• 0

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The energy was high in the air last Friday when I headed out to the second date of Jack’s Mannequin‘s MFEO tour, a tour that delivered the first full band Jack’s Mannequin show in almost a decade for Boston. Their previous performance at the much smaller Royale in Boston was part of the 10 years of Everything In Transit tour, in 2016. Still, it’s most definitely not the first time Andrew McMahon and one of his many musical incarnations have been in Boston since. Since live music returned in 2021, he’s been here twice with Andrew McMahon and the Wilderness, as well as once with the reunion of Something Corporate last year. 

And there were loyalists in the crowd, commenting about how this is where they had stood last time, already knowing the lay of the land at the iconic yet new-ish still Roadrunner, the same place both Something Corporate performed last year, and Andrew McMahon and the Wilderness the year before. Like last year’s tour, Friday night’s show sold out practically immediately, and the ticketing was set up in a way where it was guaranteed that the room would be filled with die-hard fans. The setup ensured that no ticket could be resold for more than its face value. Resulting in a system where only a handful of tickets became available a day or two before the show, like maybe ten maximum for a room that sells out at 3,500. 

And that die-hard music lover attendance was clear, as the room was already about eighty percent full, it seemed, for when the veteran act Yoke Lore took the stage. Which was incredibly impressive, considering Jack’s kept their openers for this run on the hush-hush until only about three weeks prior, and well after fans of the opening bands would have had a chance to score a ticket to the show. Yoke Lore, also known as Adrian Galvin, will take on support duties until June 17th in Kansas City and will return on June 21st in St. Paul. The Early November will open a duo of shows, opening in Chicago and Asbury Park, New Jersey, on June 20th and June 26th, respectively. The first leg of this tour is just about a month long, and when the band does their next leg, Hellogoodbye will handle the task for several shows, as well as no strangers to Boston, illuminati hotties, wrapping up the final stretch with them. But besides a slew of dates for Jack’s Mannequin, the band will also be serving as a wild main support act to Mayday Parade for their respective Australian tour. 

But to not get ahead of oneself, the night started on an incredibly strong note with Galvin’s performance with his bandmates. Considering the not-at-all lead time for Yoke Lore fans to buy tickets for the show, that didn’t show in the crowd, as there were fans in attendance, waving their arms and mouthing the lyrics. Yoke Lore has been touring now for almost ten years, and it showed in the veteran performance they delivered. Alike to a show I covered about two weeks ago, being in the opening position meant very little room for Galvin and his bandmates to work with, and he was slow to really jump around much. But once he did? The crowd was hooked and gave a hearty round of applause for every song. 

While Galvin could have leaned on moments like his incredibly popular cover of “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” he curated a nine-song set over forty minutes, with moments like “Chin Up” and “Shake” coming early in the set. He balanced the beauties of the tracks with plenty of banter with the crowd. Including a very memorable moment saying, “Thank you for coming out to support art.. It’s something we have to do together,” before he jumped into “Winona”. As he propelled through his brief time, he ended his set with his biggest hit so far, “Beige,” to which the opening notes engaged a slew of cameras opening up in the crowd. With its’ feel good messaging, it was a great way to get the crowd ready for the set that was on the precipice with the southern California boys in Jack’s Mannequin. Galvin definitely walked away with some new fans this night and is sure to be a real treat for the rest of his time on this tour. 

Just an impressive or so twenty minutes later, Jacks’ hit the stage right on time to the uproarious joy of the sold-out crowd in attendance. Before the band took the stage for the anthemic first track of the night, “I’m Ready,” a video played on stage of both the highs and lows of the early days of the formation of Jack’s Mannequin. Be it clips from recording sessions, touring moments, but also clips from the Dear Jack documentary, where frontman Andrew McMahon shared intimate moments from his time in the hospital while battling leukemia. As well as, the writing of the band’s iconic album Everything in Transit, which was written by McMahon while in the hospital. It immediately set the tone for what was to come. McMahon even commented on the latter times almost immediately in the almost two hours the band spent on stage last Friday night. This year, this time in particular, marks twenty years since McMahon was diagnosed with leukemia. Something that feels like it was just yesterday, and for at least my older friends in the audience, it was something that happened during my junior or senior years, and still feels like it was only a few years ago that you were hearing about his case. 

But look at him now, here back with his band, including a very familiar face for Andrew fans with Bob Oxblood, who also plays in his solo project, Andrew McMahon & The Wilderness. From the moment the band broke into the lead-off track of their set, the aforementioned “I’m Ready,” massive hits came surprisingly early, delighting the crowd. These moments included “Holiday from Real” and easily what could be considered their breakout hit, “The Mixed Tape.” Up until the latter track, McMahon had been pretty reserved with his piano playing, but once we hit “The Mixed Tape,” he was constantly lifting away from his piano, jumping on his piano, and fully engaging with the crowd. And that powerful energy fans have grown to love, McMahon never hesitated from that point forward. The crowd fed off that energy, giving a full-blown applause as the song ended with McMahon blowing kisses to the audience. 

Something notable about this audience that I found interesting, as someone who was also in attendance at the Something Corporate show at this same venue last year (our review can be found here for that one), was that the audience seemed much more subdued. That energy wasn’t what we were seeing on stage, but it was more, I think, this time around, really soaking in these words and lyrics that speak of not just necessarily sunny days, girls, and punk rock in general. The tunes that McMahon and his band were performing that night are both bright songs filled with empowerment like “Spinning,” and “Miss Delaney,” but also moments that really make up Everything In Transit, and the time after McMahon had gone into remission from luekemia, which he was famously battling while composing and working on the aforementioned debut release. 

Huge moments of happy tears and screaming vocals from the audience accompanied songs like the incredibly empowering “Swim,” “The Resolution,” and “Bruised.” The massive, unhinged moments were more for moments as talked about like “Spinning,” and of course, the anthemic, “Dark Blue.” While there was definitely a good amount of people that petered out after “Made for Each Other/You Can Breathe,” I witnessed a girl clearly en route to the bathroom and the second those first notes of “Dark Blue,” hit she just went, “No, no, no, no,” and ran back to the crowd. After “Dark Blue,” the regular set concluded with “Hammers and Strings (A Lullaby),” and the band walked off stage for a brief encore. 

While some in attendance pondered getting a head start on leaving the venue, as the lights went down, someone could be verbally heard saying, “…he wouldn’t.” This clip from the Dear Jack documentary appeared on the screen, with McMahon holding the first copy of the debut album discussed earlier. The crowd audibly awed in happiness as at first it was just McMahon making his way back to the stage to cruise into the finale track, “Into The Airwaves,” before the band joined him for the only song I think McMahon is allowed to end a musical performance with, “La La Lie.” Alike to Fall Out Boy ending every set with “Saturday,” it’s simply the only way one can expect an Andrew McMahon performance to end, despite the project. While the set rounded out with friends on stage singing along, a spot in the past that brought the band’s tourmates on stage, of course, McMahon spent most of the song out on his unicorn raft with a smaller llama raft in tow that was supposed to be his method of crowd-surfing this time around. 

McMahon made his way through the crowd before joining his bandmates on stage to put the cherry on top of an almost two-hour hits parade for the band. It was the second show of the run, a run that finds itself a bit north of us in Portland, Maine, tonight,  and one that won’t culminate until the late fall as the tour continues in bits and pieces, with an interlude of going out with Mayday Parade in Australia. I strongly suggest indulging in the yearly or so visit McMahon has seemingly made a habit of in this fair city. Additionally, if you haven’t already, I would strongly suggest a visit to Roadrunner. It has easily become one of my top venues in the city and has a stacked incoming fall schedule featuring acts like Yungblud and Wet Leg, just to name two. 

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Photos – Jack’s Mannequin, Yoke Lore at Roadrunner in Boston, MA on June 6th: (all images by John Hutchings)