Merriweather Post Pavilion recently hosted CAAMP, the Ohio-based indie folk-rock band that has come a long way since Taylor Meier and Evan Westfall formed the group in 2013. CAAMP has grown from playing coffee shops and bars to filling venues as sprawling as the 19,000-capacity Merriweather.
That kind of growth presents a particular challenge for a band whose music thrives on intimacy, rawness and vulnerability: How do you preserve those qualities when playing to thousands of people? At Merriweather on July 25, CAAMP impressively bridged that gap, finding ways to connect with the crowd without sacrificing the character of its music.
At 8:50pm, Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” began blasting through the venue. As the song hit its chorus, the six-piece band marched out and took its places onstage. Frontman Meier immediately established an energetic tone, launching into opener “No Sleep.” His distinctly raspy vocals filled the pavilion with a warm energy, never getting lost in the mix.
The band kept that momentum going with “Peach Fuzz,” its breakout hit from the 2019 album By and By, which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart.
One of the night’s most powerful moments came later in the set, when CAAMP welcomed opener Mon Rovîa to the stage for “By and By.” The harmonies among Meier, Mon Rovîa, and the backing vocalists were spectacular, creating what became the emotional peak of the concert.
Watch CAAMP perform “By and By” live for SiriusXM on YouTube:
CAAMP also showed off its versatility by working two covers into the set. First came Jake Bugg’s “Two Fingers,” followed later by Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.” For the latter, the band again invited one of the evening’s earlier performers to the stage, this time bringing out Hannah Cohen to showcase her vocals alongside Meier. Rather than simply reproducing the originals, CAAMP reconstructed the songs, adding touches of its signature Appalachian-inspired twang and rock.
The audience was an interesting but refreshingly genuine bunch. There wasn’t the sense that people had shown up in carefully curated country outfits simply to fit an aesthetic. This felt like a crowd of actual fans who were there because they liked the band, not because they were trying to satisfy some concert dress code. Older alt-folk fans mixed with a much larger younger contingent, some of whom likely discovered CAAMP through the viral success of its songs online.
The visual elements were notably stripped back compared with the spectacle of a typical pop tour. With warm reds and blues and relatively static lighting, the focus remained squarely on the musicians rather than the production surrounding them. A ring of backlighting illuminated the band without relying heavily on video or elaborate background visuals. The approach fit CAAMP perfectly, preserving a touch of the intimacy of the band’s earlier days even at a venue as large as Merriweather.
As the evening approached its end, CAAMP shifted back toward its more upbeat material, including “Officer of Love.” But the band saved its most meaningful moment for the encore: “All the Debts I Owe.”
Originally recorded as CAAMP’s submission to the 2016 NPR Tiny Desk Contest, the song carries a history that few others in the band’s catalog can match. Ten years after that submission, CAAMP finally had the opportunity to perform at the Tiny Desk earlier this year. At Merriweather, the band brought some of that same emotion to a much bigger stage, closing the night with the song as the Columbia crowd roared its approval.
Setlist
No Sleep
Peach Fuzz
Millions
Snowshoes
The Otter
There She Goes
26
By and By (with Mon Rovîa)
So Cool
Down the River
Mistakes
Ohio’s Ugly
Let Things Go
Vagabond
I Keep Going
Two Fingers (Jake Bugg cover)
Going to the Country
Officer of Love
Dreams (Fleetwood Mac cover)
All the Debts I Owe
Here are some photos of CAAMP performing live at Merriweather Post Pavilion on July 25, 2026. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Caden Forrester.
