We attended night two at San Diego's The Sound concert venue in Del Mar, and it wasn’t just a “second show”. It was a declaration of survival, the opening shot of the Violent Femmes’ 45th anniversary tour, and a reminder that some bands don’t become legacy acts, they become sharper, stranger, and more necessary with time. Nearly a half-century in, the Femmes somehow still sound like an upstart indie band that just stumbled into a perfect idea and refuses to let it go.
The first thing that hits you is how current they feel. Not “relevant” in the nostalgic, documentary-on-Netflix way, relevant like their songs were written for the exact nervous system we’re all living with right now. Anxious, horny, feral, funny, alienated, devout, disgusted, hopeful, and cracked open. It’s the same emotional cocktail they’ve always served, but in 2026 it lands like a mirror.
The Sound was the perfect room for it. I say it every time, and I’ll keep saying it: The Sound is named correctly. The acoustics and system are so dialed in that it doesn’t just make a band louder, it makes them clearer. In a jam-packed Del Mar Fairgrounds crowd that came ready to shout every word, the mix still had space. You could hear the grain in Gordon Gano’s voice, the snap of John Sparrow’s kit, the thump of Brian Ritchie’s low end, and the strange little ghosts that live inside this band’s arrangements.
The setlist for night two was a full meal, and it didn’t pander. They opened with “Olinguito,” which is a choice that immediately tells you the band isn’t here to cosplay their past. From there, it was a whip-smart weave of eras: “Prove My Love,” “Promise,” “Life Is an Adventure,” “To the Kill.” The pacing was fearless, songs arriving like scenes, not “hits.”
Then, early, the crowd got its obvious moment: “Blister in the Sun.” But here’s the truth: it wasn’t the high point. It was the familiar doorway into the house, not the most interesting room. Everyone knows the riff. Everyone loses their mind. But what made this show special is that the Femmes didn’t need their anthem to carry them or close the show. They were operating at a higher voltage than their own legend.
“Kiss Off” detonated the room the way it always does, still one of the greatest sneering singalongs ever written. “When Everybody’s Happy” added that particular Femmes twist of upbeat dread. “Country Death Song” remained a full-body campfire horror story, a ballad that somehow gets darker as the years pass because the world keeps proving it right.
And then came the moment that absolutely energized the crowd, in the best way, “Dance Motherfucker Dance,” sung by Brian Ritchie. I’d never heard it live before, and it hit like an electric shock to the soul. It’s one of those songs that feels like it was designed for a crowd to lose its mind to, and we did. Something about the way Ritchie delivered it - unhinged, joyous, confrontational - made it feel like the Femmes were suddenly a punk band from the future. It was the night’s electric curveball, the kind of deep cut moment that turns a great concert into a personal one.
There were also the kinds of Femmes moments that remind you they’ve always lived on the edge of what’s “acceptable.” “Black Girls” is still shocking, almost unbelievable in 2026, and the band knows it. One of the most controversial words in the song was swapped out for “maggot,” which somehow made the line land even more grotesquely, like a deliberate glare at the audience: yes, we’re still doing this, and yes, you should be uncomfortable. It’s messy, and it’s complicated, and that’s part of what makes the Violent Femmes what they are. They don’t sanitize the discomfort, they reroute it.
“Jesus Walking on the Water” arrived like a fever dream hymn, and “Good Feeling” and “Gimme the Car” brought that classic Femmes bounce that always feels like laughter with a knife behind it. “Gone Daddy Gone” was a collective release valve, joyful and weird and danceable in a way that feels almost suspicious coming from a band this emotionally intense.
The encore sealed it: “Add It Up” and “American Music.” Two songs that, in the wrong hands, could become nostalgia acts. Here, they didn’t. They sounded alive, urgent, kinetic, and slightly dangerous, like the band could still decide to derail the whole thing for fun.
A huge part of why the Femmes still feel so vital is the musicianship. John Sparrow is a phenom, and his setup is its own piece of performance art, yes, including a charcoal BBQ grill as part of the kit. It’s the perfect visual metaphor for this band: domestic object turned percussion instrument, Americana turned noise, the ordinary turned feral. He plays with the precision of a craftsman and the instincts of a street fight.
And for San Diego, there was something extra in the air thanks to Blaise Garza. Garza is San Diego-raised, a multi-instrumentalist who joined the Violent Femmes in 2004 at just 15 years old, absurdly young to step into a band this iconic, and yet he’s been part of their live and recorded universe for over two decades now. He’s best known for that massive seven-foot contrabass saxophone, a visual and sonic monster that feels like it shouldn’t exist until you see him make it sing. His presence ties this band to San Diego in a real way, not a “shoutout” way, a reminder that the city’s music ecosystem can feed into something this enduring and globally influential.
For anyone new to the story: Violent Femmes emerged from Milwaukee in the early 1980s and became improbable icons by doing something that sounded impossible on paper - acoustic punk, folk sneer, teenage panic, and American weirdness fused into songs that felt like private diaries screamed in public. They made music for outsiders who still wanted to dance, for kids who felt too much, for people who wanted the truth but didn’t want it polished.
Forty-five years later, they’re still doing that. Still weird. Still brilliant. Still refusing to behave like a band with nothing left to prove.
And walking out into the Del Mar night, with the crowd buzzing like it had just survived something, the wildest thought wasn’t “they still got it.” It was that they might be better now - tighter, freer, more in command of their own mythology without being trapped by it. A band nearly half a century deep that still sounds like an up-and-coming indie act shouldn’t exist.
But Violent Femmes, as always, weren’t built to make sense. They were built to make you feel.
Originally published on February 27, 2026.
