OK Go wants you to be entertained, and the band goes to great lengths to make sure everyone leaving one of their shows has an experience that they’ll remember forever.
At their recent completely sold-out show at 9:30 Club, they offered up an all-you-can-eat buffet of fun. But more about that in a minute.
OK Go, which started in Chicago back in the late ’90s but is now based in LA, just released their fifth studio album, And the Adjacent Possible, and it’s full of the power pop you’ve come to expect from this band — but with 10 years in between records there is inevitable growth. In midst of bouncing rock numbers are songs like “This Is How It Ends,” a song meditation on the loss of either a relationship or maybe something as broad as the loss of innocent naivete.
Watch the official lyric video for “This Is How It Ends” by OK Go on YouTube:
Speaking of time, it’s also been about 10 years since OK Go played near the DC area — having played Baltimore’s Rams Head Live in 2015. So when the tour was announced for the new album, 9:30 Club’s show as sold out pretty quickly.
So, a lot of bands might hold back a little — teasing out the surprises to the end — but OK Go isn’t like a lot of bands. Not even through the first bar of “This Too Shall Pass” with its explosive refrain “When the morning comes!” blasts of confetti burst across the stage, covering the front of the club with an ever-thickening carpet of red, white, and blue.
As singer Damian Kulash took the mic and stretched over the barrier separating the stage and the dance floor it felt more like a party than a by-the-numbers rock show.
That really set the stage (no pun intended) for what was to follow as by the second song, “Get Over It,” the whole packed club was shouting along with the rest of the band. And things really didn’t slow down until the band’s crew cleared out the stage (as much as they could with the mountains of confetti) and brought out a table arranged with several bells. Donning white gloves the band — bassist Tim Nordwind, drummer Dan Konopka, guitarist Andy Ross, and Kulash — took their stations and performed an all hand bell rendition of “Shooting the Moon” from 2010’s Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.
After a few songs, Kulash took questions from the crowd, including how the band determines touring stops, does the band still have their “slot machine” LED jackets from their previous tour, and a very sweet question from a kid in the audience, “How do you focus when the confetti’s all over the place?” to which he responded “I think we’ve built up a callous to it. Almost every night when we go backstage we go ‘I think we might need a little more’.”
In another surprise, Kulash walked through the crowd to a small elevated stage in the middle of the floor to play acoustically, illuminated by a single white light to play “This Is How It Ends.”
Back on the main stage, OK Go kicked back into high gear with “Needing/Getting” and “Better Than This” from the new album. But the band saved maybe the best for last with the singles “Upside Down & Inside Out,” and their breakout hit “Here We Go Again.”
Watch the official music video for “Love” by OK Go on YouTube:
OK Go returned to the stage to encore with The La’s “Here She Goes” and ending with a brilliant “The One Moment” from Hungry Ghosts.
If you have the opportunity to see OK Go live, well, go. It’s a must-see experience and the work that’s put into the production alone is more than worth the trip to see them.
OK Go continue their limited tour through the USA.
The setlist included:
This Too Shall Pass
Get Over It
I Won’t Let You Down
Take Me With You
A Good, Good Day At Last
White Knuckles
The Writing’s On the Wall
Shooting the Moon
This Is How It Ends
Needing/Getting
Obsession
Better Than This
Do What You Want
Oh Lately It’s So Quiet
Love
Upside Down & Inside Out
Here It Goes Again
Encore:
There She Goes (The La’s)
A Stone Only Rolls Downhill
The One Moment
Here are more photos of OK Go performing at the 9:30 Club on Sunday, June 1, 2025. All photos copyright and courtesy of David LaMason.
And here are photos of LA Exes opening the evening at the 9:30 Club on June 1st
