On October 2nd, “PUP + JEFF ROSENSTOCK PRESENT: A CATACLYSMIC RAPTURE OF FRIENDSHIPNESS” came to the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, California. PUP and Rosenstock are longtime friends, and this will be the first time they’ve toured together since 2015. Although that tour ended with cancelled shows, food poisoning, stolen gear, and vocal hemorrhaging, the two artists have joined forces once again to rewrite their history.
After that fateful tour, PUP came out with The Dream is Over, an album about how it nearly killed the band. Now, a decade later, they are coming together once more in a beautiful display of DIY punk friendship. The Canadian band PUP (abbreviation for Pathetic Use of Potential) has been rocking since 2010, with members Stefan Babcock, Steve Sladkowski, Nestor Chumak, and Zack Mykula. They released their fifth studio album, Who Will Look After The Dogs? earlier this year in May. Jeff Rosenstock is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from New York. He is known for his solo work as well as his former bands Bomb the Music Industry! and The Arrogant Sons of Bitches. He is featured on PUP’s “Get Dumber,” which lead vocalist Babcock wrote and demoed while house-sitting for Rosenstock while he was on tour. For this run of shows, the two artists brought along DC-based punk rock band Ekko Astral.
Ekko Astral, with their style of blending noise punk and post-hardcore, have described their vibe as “mascara mosh pit.” The band consists of vocalist-guitarist Jael Holzman, guitarists Liam Hughes and Sam Elmore, bassist Guinevere Tully, and drummer Miri Tyler. Their debut album, pink balloons, was named Pitchfork’s best rock album of 2024. Early into the set, Holzman had the crowd participate in a wall of death, except she explained that the “death” part wasn’t what they’re all about, and described it more so as a wall of togetherness. While Ekko Astral rages against the machine, their music is also about hope, optimism, and coming together to build a better future. In the latter half of their set, Holzman dedicated the rest of their songs to her late uncle who was a film editor in Los Angeles. They went on to play unreleased songs, ending with “Capitol Riot,” a D.C. infused protest anthem.
Next, Jeff Rosenstock graced the stage with his band to the Friends theme song, “I’ll Be There For You,” by The Rembrandts. Rocking since 1995, Rosenstock was bursting with energy, bopping around on stage like he hasn’t been playing a show practically every night for a month already. From the jump, the crowd was screaming every word, starting mosh pits, and not a single person was standing still. The love that everyone in the venue had for Rosenstock was so aggressively heartwarming and raw. His music is loud, cheeky, and boisterous. While he airs out anxieties and fears, he also looks to the uncertain future with a positive spirit. Looking at the crowd from the balcony was like watching the ocean ripple, with crowd surfers constantly making the security sweat. Ripping through nearly 20 songs in an hour, they finished with “You, in Weird Cities” to exuberant applause.
“Who Let The Dogs Out?” by Baha Men was the opportune cue for PUP to come on stage. They launched into “Hunger For Death” from their latest album, the crowd singing every word to the song laced with existential turmoil. “Who Will Look After The Dogs?” balances the chaos and cacophony of vocalist Stefan Babcock’s life with maturity and self-reflection. They played a few songs from their album Morbid Stuff, and Babcock spoke about how it felt weird to play those songs because it was released before the pandemic in 2019, which feels like a completely different time now. PUP’s entire set was emphasized by constant crowd surfers, mosh pits for practically every song, and the audience screaming their lungs out. As a refreshingly accurate co-headlining tour, both Rosenstock and PUP played for the same amount of time. For their last song, Babcock dedicated it to his girlfriend and her academic career. Titled “Shut Up,” the lyrics self-deprecatingly refer to the duality of their relationship: “you’ve got your master’s thesis / I’ve got my stupid little songs.”
During the last song, the band started transitioning into the encore while still on stage, and Jeff Rosenstock and his band began to join them. New stage backdrops were hastily put up, spelling out “DOUBLE BAND.” Both bands took a moment to set up, and Babcock and Rosenstock hugged each other and hyped the crowd up thoroughly before jumping into Rosenstock’s “Hey Allison!” altogether. Next they played PUP’s “Get Dumber,” featuring Rosenstock, which Babcock wrote and demoed while housesitting for Rosenstock before they recorded it together. They went on to play another Rosenstock song (“We Begged 2 Explode”) and PUP’s “Reservoir,” easily the heaviest and most chaotic song of the night, with the crowd going absolutely insane. For the final song of the night, Ekko Astral came back on stage and everyone chanted “triple band!” before they all did a cover of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.” From the fans giving every last drop of energy to the friendship and admiration between the artists, this tour was something special. Based on how the crowd showed their love for both artists, I have to assume that the venn diagram of each of their fan bases is a circle.
GALLERY: PUP and Jeff Rosenstock with Ekko Astral at The Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, California (October 2, 2025)
