April 29, 2025

My seventh time seeing The Wrecks truly blew my mind. I cannot tell you the last time I went to a concert where I danced my @$$ off, jumped around, and sang the entire time. When I tell you I woke up with an aching body the next day, I’m not even kidding. I felt like I could barely walk! I don’t know how these artists jump around the stage singing, playing instruments, and entertaining a crowd for hours on end. I would be in the best shape of my life if I had to do that for days and weeks on end!

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled review… I drove with my family 3 hours after work on a Tuesday in order to see our favorite band, The Wrecks, perform live. The venue for the night was The Truman. Although conveniently located right off the interstate for easy access for out of towners like myself, The Truman is honestly one of my least favorite venues. It feels like The Admiral in Omaha used to before renovations—outdated and stuffy. The bathroom situation is also incredibly weird with the sinks being open to both the Men’s and Women’s bathrooms, leaving you feeling like you made an embarrassing mistake when walking in. There are blackout curtains attempting to keep light out of the high windows, but it feels like they could try a little harder to actually black them out as tons of light seeped through until dusk.

All that being said, we arrived to the venue just in time to see the openers, Benjamin Carter and Quarters of Change. Benjamin Carter put on an energetic performance and I truly enjoyed his music. This being his first tour, as he continues to grow and get comfortable being on stage, he could really shine. Quarters of Change needs some work on their lyrics, with most of their songs feeling incredibly repetitive, but the boy band vibes were there and many fans around the venue were singing along to their set.

When The Wrecks finally came on, I was awestruck by their creative set design. This tour, the Inside : Outside Tour came with The Wrecks designing the stage to look like being outside, while playing inside. See, incredibly creative! From the greenery, including faux trees and a grass wall, to the clothesline draped across the stage, to finally the turf floor, this was the most immersive set design I’ve seen in a long time. The videos posted before tour started featuring the band working on the set design themselves made this even better. I loved following along with their pre-tour planning and seeing everything finally come to life on the stage.

Nick Anderson, the lead singer and songwriter for the band screamed, sang, and jumped around the stage like crazy. His energy had me dancing around without a care of who was watching my awful dance moves. Throughout the first few numbers, Nick kept mentioning how he could feel them putting in overtime that night as the crowd kept the energy high. Come to find out, the Kansas City show happened to be the first show the band only played 16 songs instead of 17.

While at the show, we were excited they would be playing more, so I was a little disappointed to find out they actually played the least amount they had all tour. That said, the setlist packed a punch with many of my all-time favorites being played like Sonder, Feels So Nice, Fvck Somebody, and Infinitely Ordinary. They also played all but one song from their newest EP. The song titled I Don’t Know from the newest EP did not appear on the setlist, which was another minor disappointment, but the playing of This Life I Have made up for it. Overall, this concert was worth the three hour drive there and back and the getting to bed at 3 a.m. just to wake up for work at 7.

This band remains on top of my favorites list and I cannot wait to see what they do next. I just hope that Nick will start putting out music sooner so that we can have more shows to attend! :)

OVERALL RATINGS

Setlist: 8.5/10 (could have used more songs)

Merch: 0/10 (what a missed opportunity IMO)

Set Design: 20/10

Venue: 5/10

Vibes: 20000/10 (despite the disappointments, still had so much fun)