Innings Festival 2023 Recaps: Green Day, Eddie Vedder, and More

The 2023 Innings Festival brought two days of music and baseball to Tempe Beach Park. Some big names were on this year's bill, including Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, Southern rock/blues legends The Black Crowes, and nerd rock favorites Weezer.

Here are recaps of some of the weekend's sets.

SATURDAY

Annie DiRusso

The best part of any festival is getting there as early as possible to see an artist you know absolutely nothing about whatsoever. It’s certainly paid off before across my own extended coverage of various local and national fests, and Annie DiRusso was an entertaining enough addition to that same list. On the one hand, her brand of uber sentimental, '90s-indebted indie was steadily in line with Innings’ whole “we just love rock” shtick. And yet still, the singer-songwriter vibes, even amid the power chords and over-sized angst, made it a decidedly left-field offering. (Baseball pun!)

But if you could ignore all of that context (which makes sense if you’re the kind of person to arrive promptly at 12:50), DiRusso and her band were charming enough — especially rocking their matching flower shirts/dresses. It was the sort of music that's deeply obsessed with childhood loves and dead dogs but also has enough true grit and depth to not feel overwhelmed by the massive Home Field stage — which is close enough to the perfect formula for Innings. The end result was a snapshot of many a first-day festival performance: totally fun, a little awkward (instrument issues are a pain), and endearing enough to make the early bustle to get there generally worthwhile. The first performance inevitably sets the tone and temperature of the entire weekend, and it was already looking like two days of mostly unassuming fun. Christopher Coplan

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

Andrew McMahon wants you to know he’s been around the block. After performing Jack’s Mannequin’s “The Mixed Tape,” the 40-year-old singer-songwriter reminded the Innings crowd that he’s spent more than half his life performing and releasing music.

“I’m a lifer,” he says.

Despite McMahon’s generally polished presentation, one of the standout moments from the set came via mistake. “I fucked up. I fucked my whole band up,” he laughs after misreading the setlist and performing his Something Corporate track “I Woke Up in a Car” right after his newest single “Laying on the Hood of Your Car.” The former is a 21-year-old track about the tumult of touring, and in one lyric, the song references flights connecting in Arizona, much to the delight of his Tempe audience.

With elementary and cheerful songwriting, McMahon casts a wide net. On either side of me, a 40-something in a Blink-182 shirt and a young “Cecilia and the Satellite” superfan sang along. On stage, McMahon is jittery, standing more often than he sits to play his grand piano, covered in colorful, encouraging slogans and nods to his Dear Jack Foundation charity. During “Synesthesia,” he wandered through the crowd with a colorful parachute straight out of grade school gym class. Belting the song’s final chorus, he stood on the barricade, delivering each line with the charm of a Southern California youth pastor. Given McMahon’s 2005 acute lymphoblastic leukemia diagnosis and 25-year touring gauntlet, his relentless optimism on stage is more magnetic and endearing than most of his radio pop rock peers. Gannon Hanevold

The Offspring

I don’t know if Innings Festival, in all of its five-year run, has ever seen a mosh pit. I don’t know if I, in all of my 21-year run, have ever seen a mosh pit instigated by a band fronted by a 57-year-old lead singer. There were mosh pits on Saturday. Scarce and fleeting, but the crowd opened up in front of the Home Plate Stage for The Offspring.

The sound at Innings’ main stage didn’t do the Orange County rock band any favors. From my perch 50 yards back, the vocals drifted between muted and jarring during the band’s hour-long set. Aesthetically, The Offspring looked like they were plucked straight out of the band’s peak. Frontman Dexter Holland rocked bleached hair and thick black sunglasses; guitarist Noodles sported a vibrant and beachy button-up. But musically, the band isn’t suited to perform their '90s grunge pop singles with the same efficiency they once did. Holland’s voice cracked at the start of “Bad Habit” and by the song’s end, he was visibly out of breath.

Their stage banter wasn’t exactly smooth, either. A Step Brothers reference here, some wordplay about the band’s vulgarity there. Don’t get me wrong — The Offspring’s brashness certainly adds to their charisma but it’s most effective without acknowledgment. Ultimately, the band’s self-awareness and depth of ubiquitous hits made it easy to overlook a bit of slop. A four-song closing sequence of “Why Don’t You Get a Job,” “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy),” “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid,” and “Self Esteem” was enough to satisfy the hordes of skull-clad Steve Stiflers in attendance. Myself, too. GH

The Pretty Reckless

When The Pretty Reckless debuted way back in 2009, it seemed perfectly natural to be uncertain or even downright skeptical, mostly 'cause frontwoman Taylor Momsen was unproven in the rock world as a still-teenage actor in titles like Gossip Girl. But it’s been some 14 years, and clearly those more gimmicky origins don’t hold as much weight in 2023, right? And the answer to that is a tad more complicated than you might expect. Because, yes, Momsen has matured into a proper rock star — she’s brash and utterly fearless, and whether she’s whispering or wailing, there’s heaps of power and gravitas to her onstage presence. The issue, then, is the context of the band itself. Maybe that ‘80s-aping L.A. metal shtick was cool circa 2009, but it just feels a little dated. (And that’s even when you consider that the rest of the band have proper musical chops and chutzpah to spare.) It seems like a case where a different, perhaps more relevant sound would maybe do the band a bit of good and help make greater use of their giant-sized rock god dynamic.

Certainly the crowd didn’t seem to care much about such criticisms — but that’s likely because they radiated a love and fondness rooted in the band as this quite specific nostalgia machine. If nothing else, their whole bag fit with the rest of the bill — every big name here was a tried and true legacy act — but you couldn’t help but think The Pretty Reckless maybe deserved something more than prematurely cashing in on hazy retromania. CC

Weezer

I’m old enough that Weezer were a pretty seminal band growing up. And yet I’ve only ever seen them during the state fair some years back and now at a baseball-themed music festival. Those two seemingly innocuous facts have me genuinely wondering what that says about the band’s existence, and even my own inherent fandom. Because there’s something about these specific locales that makes you wonder if they’re as elite a group of rockers as people have always assumed, or has there always been something hokey to the point of actively limiting the band’s career prospects? (Like, more hokey than routinely referencing Buddy Holly, or releasing a song titled “Pork and Beans.”)

The best answer to these burning questions is that it doesn’t ultimately matter. Because the band readily demonstrated that there’s something nearly magical no matter where you’re watching — and even how many people are eating Island Noodles at the time. Whether that’s frontman Rivers Cuomo looking like your quirky uncle; the cheesy extended guitar solos; or just the silly little bits (like so many shout-outs to Phoenix/Tempe), Weezer are unabashedly rock nerds. And they carry that energy and larger aesthetic with a clear sense of pride — a thing they’ve worked hard to cultivate and expand, like a great stamp collection. They’re unceasingly and perpetually both creative spitfires and the lamest ducks you’ve ever met, and they’re happy to exemplify that even further with a pretty solid, career-hopping setlist. (The move from “Beverly Hills” to “My Name Is Jonas” was extra inspired and highlighted their duality brilliantly.) Even the tiniest interlude of Green Day’s “When I Come Around” midway through “El Scorcho” was just more proof that Weezer know who they are and make you fall in love with their endless commitment to the bit.

If anything, playing here felt like the best use of their energies as this accessible, totally kooky silly rock band that are loved endlessly. Were there some downsides? Sure, the sound quality was iffy in parts (and seemed to get worse as the set rolled on). But it was like we’d been invited into their parents’ garage for a jam session, and amid the KISS posters and action figures, we all found a grand old time. CC

The Black Crowes

The whole point of festival reviews isn’t just to say, “This happened and then this happened.” (Although that clearly does help.) It’s about talking about why a show mattered — or ultimately didn’t — and trying to be an authority to the people in defense of that (potentially unpopular) appraisal. But then you come across a set like The Black Crowes, and you realize that the fans can be as much of an authority as even the most experienced critic. Because where I assumed most people would instead wait the hour-plus for Green Day, an already crowded day reached a new unofficial record with TBC’s attendance.

Sure, popularity alone isn’t exactly the sole indicator of quality, but it does clearly have some larger effect. Especially if that effect is just that the band recognized the fest’s energy and did their best to try and step up accordingly. Try heartily they sure did, as the band turned the Right Field area into their own extra-sexy nightclub (or a down-home dinner party with more booze than actual eats). The crowd definitely responded in kind, fostering a kind of feedback loop of soulful grooves and unabashed enthusiasm. Is a TBC show the best thing in the world? No, especially when you consider the band’s noticeable tendency for the super cheesy, employing several overwrought ballads as opposed to their usual jams, which does hurt their credibility as sweat-soaked kingpins. But this set felt like the first time amid the day’s entire proceedings where the crowd didn’t just know what was best, but they seemed to lock in with the band for a truly evocative, almost cathartic experience.

Maybe it was just a nice warmup for the madness of Green Day to come. Or, perhaps it was just any sort of solace or entertainment amid an extra-long, overly crowded day. All of those are decent enough answers, surely, but the crowd had an even better one: If you wanted to go to church on a Saturday night, TBC was the place to be. CC

Green Day

Punk rock stardom is strange. Oxymoronic, even. But yet here Green Day is, almost 30 years after Dookie, finding a way to make it work. It’s hard to earnestly sing lyrics about political apathy and consumerism on a stage sponsored by Verizon, but Green Day proved themselves capable of overcoming that dichotomy on Saturday.

Before the band even took the stage, there was a 10-minute prelude featuring Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop,” a signature pink bunny mascot, and a video montage of past Green Day performances. It was clear from the jump that the band can juggle the ego of being headlining rockstars while maintaining their original punk hooliganism.

Maybe it’s Billie Joe Armstrong’s perennially wide-eyed expression, seemingly in awe of his own prestige and power over the crowd. At any moment, Armstrong is keen on conducting an orchestra of oohs and ahhs. Or maybe it’s drummer Tré Cool, the band’s thunderous conductor with too much swagger for the back of the stage. Either way, Green Day has kept a whimsy that sets them apart from their peers, but what truly made the band must-see entertainment on Saturday was the setlist, a 21-song gauntlet with no pauses for even the casual fan.

The show opened with hit singles “American Idiot” and “Holiday,” both capped by pyrotechnics. At one point, “Brain Stew,” “St. Jimmy” and “When I Come Around” are played in sequence. It’s all hits and no misses, weaved together with an appropriate amount of stage gimmicks. There’s a saxophone solo with a nod to “Careless Whisper” and a cover of “Shout” by the Isley Brothers. During “King for a Day,” Armstrong’s ska punk anthem about gender fluidity, he dons a crown. A young fan took the stage to sing the last chorus of “Know Your Enemy,” while another fan shredded power chords on a cover of Operation Ivy’s “Knowledge.”

“You can keep the guitar,” said Armstrong, as the fan was whisked backstage, mouth still agape.

Green Day moved through its setlist at breakneck speed, hit after hit bleeding into one another. Even placements for Green Day ballads like “Wake Me Up When September Ends” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” felt suitable. The only pacing issues came when the band snuck in their radio soft rock smash “21 Guns,” an obvious sonic outlier between harder tracks like “Minority” and “Waiting.”

As any good headlining act should, the band saved its best moment for the conclusion. After opening with “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the pinnacle of rock opera, Green Day finished with an epic of their own — “Jesus of Suburbia.” The night ended in the only way that felt right: 30 seconds of fireworks, Tré Cool smashing the daylights out of his drum set, and Armstrong alone on the stage, eulogizing with an acoustic performance of “Good Riddance.”

“I hope you had the time of your life,” the song goes. Based on the football field-sized herd of fans still transfixed on the empty stage, it looked like Armstrong wasn’t the only one who did. GH

SUNDAY

Paris Jackson

Whereas the appeal of, say, an Annie DiRusso type is the clear lack of a major profile, that’s obviously not the case for Paris Jackson. The daughter of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, the young Jackson is instantly notorious anytime you even see her name on a lineup. (Which hasn’t been very long, as her debut only came around 2020.) It’s not easy to bridge the resulting cognitive dissonance of what you get and what you’d expected, but there was certainly enough there to merit the old college try. Because Jackson may not be this instantaneous ball of molten pop magic, but her indie-leaning singer-songwriter shtick does genuinely work (it’s sort of like a grittier Jewel, or if Michelle Branch fronted the Silversun Pickups).

While it’s a sound that’s often too nebulous, and sometimes incapable of organically flourishing, Jackson herself has the chops to be a compelling enough frontwoman. She engages her own legacy (or maybe people’s perceptions?) with a certain grounded grace and humorous self-awareness — it’s the perfect antidote for any lingering doubts of her innate prowess. To an extent, half the fun was coming in expecting the world, only to have Jackson (and her sturdy backing band that expertly plays to her strengths) counter that with something nearly as disarming: a generally good pop-rock show. Her mic had issues for most of the set, but like her whole sordid history, it was only more fuel for Jackson to display a certain heart and honesty and get people firmly on her side. CC

Mt. Joy

When Philadelphia’s Mt. Joy took the stage, opening their Innings performance with 2022’s “Lemon Tree,” their attire and song selection gave fans an idea of what kind of virtuosity they should expect. On one side of the stage, lead singer Matt Quinn rocked a sweater and a classically stained acoustic guitar. On the other, guitarist Sam Cooper flexed a reflective, metallic red and gold 1969 Fender Jaguar. Equal parts electric blues and contemporary folk-pop, Mt. Joy was seemingly built for the main Innings stage, and their eclectic performance was undoubtedly one of the festival’s highlights.

Throughout their hourlong set, the band proved their rock 'n' roll repertoire for anybody unfamiliar. Cooper smoothly fluttered on a guitar riff and endlessly accelerated on a solo during “Let Loose.” Closer “Silver Lining” was contagious and everyone in the band seemed to get a chance to solo at some point, including drummer Sotiris Eliopoulos, who held the attention of the crowd for minutes on end with just his set and a banana-shaped rattler. By the end, Mt. Joy checked the boxes for their hippie street cred — a song about political tensions (“Sheep”), a long-winded jam session and a song about getting high at a restaurant (“Julia”) all played in sequence. Hell, the titular lyric on their second biggest track is “Jesus drives an astrovan.” That’s enough to probably get an invite to an inevitable Woodstock reboot. GH

The Head and The Heart

It was a bittersweet performance for The Head and The Heart at Innings, as the band performed with founding member Josiah Johnson for the first time in almost eight years. Johnson was called upon to fill in for band members Charity Rose Thielen and Matt Gervais, who are married and expecting their second child. The change wasn’t seamless, as Johnson and the band’s other founding member, Jonathan Russell, didn’t instantly connect on harmonies the way they once might have. Missing Thielen’s vocals left a hole in their signature sound, and the band didn’t seem to match the energy of poppier songs like “All We Ever Knew” and “Missed Connection.” The stoic stage chemistry ultimately left their folk pop la-las and da-da-das feeling hollow. GH

However, there was something special about seeing Johnson reunite with the band to perform the best of the group’s early work. The Seattle group’s sound has drifted ever closer to pop in the last decade, so Sunday night felt like a time capsule of The Head and The Heart from years past. Johnson’s evidently joyful nostalgia combined with Russell’s stability added emotional vigor to songs like set closer “Rivers and Roads,” an acoustic hit from the band’s debut album, which deals heavily with themes of change and departure. Its predecessor on the record, “Down In The Valley,” deservedly earned the set’s loudest applause. The performance wasn’t always smooth and Thielen’s absence was noticeable, but it felt significantly wholesome to see Johnson on stage with the band again. GH

Marcus Mumford

Whether organizers intended it or not, this year’s Innings had two beloved frontmen gone solo. Eddie Vedder is far more of an established act (especially since Pearl Jam is so utterly prolific), and Marcus Mumford is still relatively fresh into his Sons-less solo career. (His debut LP only dropped in September 2022.) So, the question inevitably begged if he could put on a show — and maybe offer something new — or if we instead missed out on a proper Mumford & Sons appearance? And, if it weren’t obvious already, it was mostly the former — Mumford has the charisma, passion, and big, booming vocals needed to be a true and triumphant star. (As he said, when talking about his ability to withstand the February cold, “I was made for this.”)

But all of that comes with a massive asterisk, because the set sure felt like it could’ve been a Mumford & Sons gig. Not that it’s cheating or something, but the stuff from his solo record is just close enough — massively sentimental, country-adjacent folk rock — to trick anyone who wasn’t savvy enough. (There were exceptions, of course, like the extra rollicking “Better Angels” or the older, semi-Bob Dylan cover “Kansas City.”) But mostly it felt like Mumford was leading just another band, and it became less a time where he was stepping out on his own and more a chance to do something just daring enough to be novel (mostly). Which is a crying shame, because some of the highlights of the set were when Mumford went at it totally alone. That includes a stripped down version of “The Cave,” which eschewed frenetic passion for a spotlight on Mumford as robust crooner, and “Cowboy Like Me,” the Taylor Swift duet where he swimmingly tackled both parts.

Those instances felt like Mumford being a proper solo act: open and utterly vulnerable, and whether they dazzled or not (again, mostly the former), it fostered an honesty and intimacy that some of the “bigger” full band songs just couldn’t fully muster. They were effectively snapshots of a familiar side of Mumford but one with a different kind of energy and all-around emotional depth. The crowd seemed fine either way, reacting with a quiet and pleasant appreciation over anything else, but that didn’t really seem to phase Mumford very much. He brought his A game that night, and while it wasn’t perfectly consistent, it further demonstrated the singer’s long-term potential as a festival-sized honcho. CC

Eddie Vedder

This was it. Everything that was Innings 2023 had led effectively led to this very moment. All the emotional ups and downs; the calories gained from consuming 5-pound bricks of fries; and the seemingly endless partying. (Not to mention the waiting and chilly weather and all that other, less savory jazz.)

And it was truly ever-loving magic.

Yes, it was without the explosive bombast of Green Day’s Saturday headlining spot (and any actual explosives), but Vedder brought a communal vibe like few other outings during the entire weekend. He boiled down the proceedings into a minimalist, zen-like solo showcase, where even a circle of a few simple guitars somehow seemed like a properly giant-sized stage show. The setlist itself was a similarly effective, streamlined little beast. Acoustic takes on Pearl Jam classics like “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town” captured a sense of mythos without taking the focus away from what distinguished Vedder as a solo entity. Meanwhile, various covers — like an earnest take on U2’s “In God’s Country” and a rollicking spin on Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” — made the show feel all the more star-studded. (As did appearances from Josh Klinghoffer of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame and pitcher-turned-musician Bronson Arroyo.)

But even without any of that “assistance,” proper solo tracks like “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” proved that Vedder’s vocal prowess remains as haunting and stirring as ever. Yet it was ultimately more than just the actual music that gripped the soul and built this profound, singular moment of family-like bonding. Like the bit (that was or was not planned?) where Vedder smashed a ukulele. Or when he stopped the show (twice, actually) for separate crowd instances, playing concerned father figure to further round out his rock deity status. Little gestures as they may have been, each fully demonstrated just how involved Vedder was in connecting with everyone and fostering this understated celebration of life and music. As such, as the set rolled on, it became clear to this writer that Vedder had become almost the Neil Young or Bob Dylan of his rather talent-heavy generation, which is to say, this sage-like entertainer whose value is as much about perpetuating art and culture as it is providing some kind of undefined guidance and direction. (Especially if that whole process also touches on baseball, as the ardent Vedder even dedicated a song to his Chicago Cubs.)

Maybe he’s not at that exact same level as a Young/Dylan, but he is the kind of folksy hero that fans have followed through the bulk of their lives. Which makes total sense, as they responded in kind by joyously singing along to every song, two-stepping and holding up goofy signs, and generally perpetuating an air of boundless love and camaraderie. If Vedder’s down-home concert was the true encapsulation of the whole weekend, it meant Innings was a place for every single person, and that the right song could brighten the whole dang world if only for the tiniest window.