If there’s a smell that can instantly throw you into the middle of a rock show, it’s that faint mix of summer air, spilled beer, and fried food drifting up to the lawn. By the time Joan Jett and the Blackhearts stormed the stage at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Friday, that haze hung low over Columbia, Maryland, like a stubborn ghost that wasn’t ready to leave. The crowd wasn’t ready to leave either. They’d packed themselves into the Pavilion with that buzzing energy that comes from knowing you’re about to see a living piece of rock and roll history still fighting, still snarling, still sounding like a razor through velvet.
Joan Jett doesn’t ease into anything, she kicks doors open — and she certainly kicked them open for Billy Idol as his opening act. The first jagged chords of “Victim of Circumstance” slammed through the speakers, and suddenly Merriweather didn’t feel like a picturesque suburban amphitheater anymore. It felt like a club, sweaty and mean, where the walls are dripping, and every word feels like it might burn a hole through you.
“Victim of Circumstance” might not be the obvious curtain-raiser for casual fans, but that’s exactly why it works. It’s gritty, it’s restless, and it sets the tone for the night — this wasn’t going to be a jukebox of radio hits (though those came too), but a reminder of how deep Joan’s catalog goes. She stalked the stage in that leather jacket she seems to have been born in, slinging her guitar low, the same way she’s been doing since The Runaways were teenagers setting off parental alarms in the late ‘70s.
“Cherry Bomb” followed, and it was like someone lit a fuse under the entire pavilion. You could feel the shift: a collective jolt of recognition, as if half the lawn had been waiting all night for that three-chord detonation. The song still sounds dangerous, even after decades of karaoke covers and commercial placements after its original recording by The Runaways. In Joan’s hands, it’s less nostalgia and more declaration — I’m still here, and I can still blow this place to pieces.
The run from “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)” into “You Drive Me Wild” was pure swagger. Joan’s voice isn’t polished, never was, never will be. But it doesn’t need to be — it’s ragged in all the right places, tough enough to carry the sneer but warm enough to pull people in. There’s a raw intimacy in the way she phrases lines, as if she’s not performing at you but daring you to step a little closer.
Then came the newer material: “Change the World” and “(Make the Music Go) Boom.” And here’s where you remember that Joan Jett has never been a museum piece. Those tracks might not carry the cultural weight of “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” but live, they pulse with a sharpness that keeps her set from being a time capsule. “Change the World” in particular had this surprising bite — a reminder that she’s always been political, always been restless. The lawn swayed, maybe less in familiarity and more in curiosity, but that’s part of the point. She isn’t playing to freeze herself in amber.
Watch the official music video for “Change the World” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts on YouTube:
The midsection of the show hit like waves: “Fake Friends” sliding into “Lie to Me,” both carried by that pounding Blackhearts backbeat. Watching spiky haired Dougie Needles grinning and jamming away on his guitar, is like seeing the band’s living memory in action. He’s been with Joan since before some of the audience were born, and he still plays like the stakes are sky-high.
“Androgynous,” Joan’s cover of The Replacements’ classic, slowed things down just enough for the crowd to breathe. She’s always been drawn to songs that blur lines, whether they’re about gender, identity, or the politics of belonging. Her version was tender without losing its edge, and you could see couples all around — same-sex, opposite-sex, doesn’t matter — lean into each other. In a summer where headlines keep reminding us of who’s trying to police who, the song landed heavy. Not preachy, not over-explained, just delivered with that understated conviction that’s always been her secret weapon.
And then came “Everyday People.” If “Androgynous” felt like a gentle elbow, “Everyday People” was the open-armed anthem. Sly and the Family Stone wrote it for a fractured America, and somehow, 50-plus years later, Joan makes it feel freshly urgent without hammering it into you. By the end, the Pavilion sounded like a choir — rowdy, imperfect, but fully together.
But let’s be honest: For a lot of people in the seats and on the lawn, the night was building toward one song. You could feel it. And when that familiar riff of “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” rang out into the night, it was like Merriweather itself leaned forward. Thousands of voices sang it back, not politely, but like it was the only song they’d ever learned. There’s something about that track — recorded on a whim in 1981, shrugged off by her label as filler — that has outlived every trend it brushed against. Live, it’s almost too big for the speakers, and yet Joan still plays it with a smirk, like she knows exactly how absurd and perfect it is to have that kind of anthem in your back pocket.
Watch the official music video for “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts on YouTube:
“Crimson and Clover” kept the momentum rolling, stretching out with that hypnotic shimmer, Joan leaning into the mic with just enough vulnerability to remind you that toughness doesn’t mean armor. And then “I Hate Myself for Loving You” — a song that still snarls like it’s brand new — pushed the energy back into the red zone. By then, the Pavilion was loud enough that you could barely hear the person next to you.
She closed with “Bad Reputation.” Of course she did. Anything else would’ve felt wrong. It’s the song that defined her, the one that still sums up everything about why Joan Jett matters. She doesn’t chase approval. She doesn’t sand down the edges. She just is. And when that chorus roared out — “I don’t give a damn ‘bout my bad reputation” — it wasn’t just her singing it, it was everybody in the place. And maybe that’s the secret: Joan makes defiance communal, she turns rebellion into a singalong.
Standing in that crowd, it struck me how multi generational the audience was. There were graying punks who probably saw her in the early ‘80s, teenagers in patched denim jeans mouthing along like they’d found her on a playlist last week, parents with kids. That’s not nostalgia — that’s longevity and that’s relevance.
Joan Jett doesn’t pretend to be timeless, she just keeps showing up, leather jacket on, guitar strapped, ready to remind you that rock and roll is supposed to feel like this: urgent, imperfect, sweaty, unfiltered. She doesn’t talk much between songs, never has. But she doesn’t need to, because the songs do the talking.
Setlist
1. Victim of Circumstance
2. Cherry Bomb
3. Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)
4. You Drive Me Wild
5. Change The World
6. (Make the Music Go) Boom
7. Fake Friends
8. Lie to Me
9. Androgynous
10. Everyday People
11. I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll
12. Crimson and Clover
13. I Hate Myself for Loving You
14. Bad Reputation
What a stellar review. Talented scribe, this Michael Sprouse. Well done, sir.