Concert review: Laura Jane Grace & the Mississippi Medicals w/ Alex Lahey and Rodeo Boys | 04.01.25, Off Broadway (with photo gallery)

Photo of Laura Jane Grace by Bryan J. Sutter

To many, Laura Jane Grace needs little introduction. The singer and guitarist of acclaimed punk outfit Against Me! has been carving out her own piece of the musical world in various solo configurations for a minute. Her 2020 release Staying Alive and last year’s Hole in my Head are among the best albums in the genre so far this decade. Recently, she made headlines after performing her single “Your God (God’s Dick)” at a March 7th Bernie Sanders event in Wisconsin. The song is a humorous but pointed track aimed at religious hypocrisy and discrimination that anyone with even the smallest bit of related trauma from their upbringing can identify with. Of course, this created an uproar among every right wing culture war influencer and their sentient roller backpack followers. In an era when it feels like many left-of-center punk acts tone down parts of their message to remain friendly to capitalism, Laura Jane Grace went all the way.

With a new record, Adventure Club, to be released mid-July on Polyvinyl, Laura Jane Grace and her cohorts kicked off their tour at Off Broadway in St. Louis with an inspiring sold-out show on April 1st, 2025. It was, to put it politely, very nice to see a crowd that was more diverse than the typical punk show in the Gateway City.

Lansing, Michigan’s Rodeo Boys started off the evening. The punk foursome recently played Off Broadway with the Smoking Popes and left a very positive impression with a dear friend who was at that show. Their bio on label Don Giaovani’s website details Rodeo Boys as “what happens when the Miller High Life grows legs and starts walking on its own,” which, after seeing them live, is a pretty apt description. While it was a bummer to have Marissa Paternoster’s Noun drop off the tour, Rodeo Boys were an exceptional replacement.

Next up was Aussie indie rock singer-songwriter Alex Lahey. I had the pleasure of photographing Lahey last year at The Pageant when she was opening for The Front Bottoms. I found myself very impressed with her and her band, and I was very excited to see them again on this tour. It is not hard to see why she’s becoming a bigger name in her homeland and here in the States, with her honest lyrics and catchy songwriting skills.

Laura Jane Grace and the Mississippi Medicals started their set with “The Swimming Pool Song,” a highlight off of 2020’s Stay Alive. With her trademark Rickenbacker 330 hanging off her shoulder, the room lit up as Grace and moved to the spicier “Hole in my Head.” As someone who has photographed their fair share of punk shows, I was waiting for that moment where the crowd started moshing, but it never really happened. This was a little different, as the crowd skewed a little older than I had expected and less rife with the beer-soaked toxic masculinity that greatly increases your chances of walking away with a gnarly bruise that you won’t notice until the next morning. I will take that over getting crowdkilled by some dingus in an ironic t-shirt. My friend later described the vibe as a safe space, and while I will not play identity politics bingo here, I can say that was perhaps the most diverse crowd I have seen at a punk show in St. Louis in some time. If anything, it resembled more like what I imagine when older folks in the music scene have described to me the warehouse rave days here during the ’90s, with maybe a little less pleather.

The setlist was a showcase of LJG’s talent as a songwriter and performer, with the first half consisting of her more recent material and the latter consisting of some choice selections from her former band Against Me. One could say that songs like “SuperNatural Possession” and “Me Mine Me” puts her up there with the late Jay Reatard when it comes to writing songs under the three-minute mark that do not waste a single second of their duration and here, at a capacity Off Broadway, we got more than enough of that to satisfy. | Bryan J. Sutter