by Viviana Mendoza
Some nights aren’t just shows. They’re chapters.
They live somewhere between nostalgia and release. Tonight, at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, with the sky still soft from the last bit of sun, three bands gave us more than just sets. They gave us everything.
Foxing gave us heartbreak.
Taking Back Sunday brought the nostalgia.
Coheed and Cambria closed with a cosmic, emotional explosion.
The air felt heavy in the best way, like everyone in the crowd had come carrying something and planned to leave it there.
Foxing: Beautiful Wreckage, Soft and Loud
Foxing walked onstage quietly, almost cautiously, like they were slipping into the night rather than starting a show. But the moment they opened with “Secret History,” the energy shifted. There was something hypnotic about the way they built tension, layering textures and emotions with each track.
“Spit” and “Hell 99” came next, unraveling with a sense of urgency. By the time they launched into “Grand Paradise,” the Greek had transformed into a dreamscape. The guitar pulsed in waves, and the low-end shook the bones. But it wasn’t just noise. It was feeling. Fully realized and bleeding through every note.
“Nearer My God” stretched wide with distortion and longing. The song demanded stillness and surrender, and the crowd gave both. It collapsed and rebuilt itself before our eyes. It was beautiful and brutal at once.
And then, “Rory.”
They closed with it, and it broke something open in me. That song has always been a kind of emotional reckoning. A plea just beneath the surface, a story of unrequited love that refuses to quiet down. It doesn’t ask for resolution. It just begs to be felt. And under the heavy Berkeley night, I felt every word settle into the places I’m still trying to understand.
There’s something about the way Conor Murphy sings it, like he’s trying to convince someone who has already made up their mind. That desperate clarity. The ache of knowing someone may never feel the same, and asking anyway. It mirrored something in me. What it means to sit with the end of one love while trying to keep your heart open to another. It was raw. Not clean. Not hopeful. Just honest.
Foxing didn’t just open the night. They excavated it.
Taking Back Sunday: The Sound of Who We Were and Who We Still Are
Before the band even took the stage, the crowd started buzzing as “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen blasted through the speakers. It was a playful, unexpected choice, and somehow the perfect setup. There’s something about that song; joyous, chaotic, unstoppable that matched the energy of what was about to unfold. When Taking Back Sunday finally appeared, bathed in lights and pure momentum, the crowd erupted.
The first notes of “A Decade Under the Influence” hit fast, and the air cracked wide open. There was no easing in. People around me were already screaming lyrics with their entire bodies, fists in the air, hearts on the floor.
Adam Lazzara moved like a man unbound. The mic swinging in wide arcs, pacing the length of the stage, leaning into the front row with that same intensity he’s always carried. But in between songs, we saw something more. Adam paused and talked to us, not just stage banter, but something sincere. He spoke about how touring has helped him mentally. How stepping on stage and being present in these moments allows everything else to quiet down. How the show becomes a kind of refuge. A place where he feels like himself again.
You could see it in how he sang. “You’re So Last Summer” wasn’t just nostalgia, it was defiance. “Cute Without the ‘E’” felt like a ritual. When the crowd screamed it back at him, it didn’t feel like a sing-along. It felt like we were all exorcising something. Every broken heart. Every old version of ourselves. Gone, and yet somehow still with us in the chorus.
They closed with “MakeDamnSure,” of course. Loud, messy, beautiful. The whole amphitheater shook with that last chorus. It didn’t matter how many years had passed. In that moment, it still meant something. Maybe even more than it used to.
What struck me most wasn’t just how tight they sounded or how electric the energy was, it was how alive it all felt. There was no autopilot. Adam still believes in every word, and because of that, so do we.
Taking Back Sunday didn’t just give us the soundtrack to who we were. They reminded us that we’re still becoming. That we can carry the past and still move forward. That shouting a song into the night can still feel like healing. And tonight, it did.
Coheed & Cambria: Cosmic Surges and Emotional Grounding
By the time Coheed & Cambria took the stage, the night sky above the Greek had deepened into a quiet, saturated blue. The lights dimmed. The crowd leaned forward. The energy felt dense, like we were all waiting to be launched into orbit.
They opened with “Goodbye, Sunshine” and from the first note it was obvious this was going to be more than just a standard closing set. It felt cinematic and immediate. The band moved with precision, but nothing about the performance felt stiff. It was alive. Breathing. Sweating. Bleeding.
“Blood Red Summer” brought an early wave of nostalgia that buzzed through the crowd like electricity. The chorus echoed through the open air like a memory we all shared. “Number City” sparked a burst of light and chaos. “The Suffering” hit exactly how it always does catchy, chaotic, and full of that bittersweet melancholy that makes you want to scream and dance at the same time.
“Everything Evil” came on like a fever dream. Long, winding, a little sinister, it held the audience in its grip. And when In “Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3” started to build, you could feel the entire amphitheater lock in. The crowd shouted every word, every whisper, every crash and swell. There was a kind of reverence in the air, a shared understanding that this moment meant something.
People were crowd surfing. Hands reached up to guide them. Everyone smiling, looking up, passing strangers along like they were part of the current. It was joyful and chaotic and safe in a way that only a crowd that truly loves each other can be.
Then came the encore. Claudio returned solo to play “Corner My Confidence” and it quieted the venue instantly. The intimacy of that moment, one voice and one guitar, felt almost too tender for a space so big. But it held. And we all held our breath with it.
He followed it with a surprise cover of “Mr. Brightside”. The entire venue erupted. The crowd shouted along with every word like it had been the soundtrack of their entire adolescence. It was absurd and euphoric and so much fun. A moment of pure release.
And of course, they closed with “Welcome Home“. That riff tore through the Greek like lightning. Lights exploded. The drums thundered. Claudio stood center stage, completely in command. It felt like we were witnessing the end of something holy. Everyone was on their feet. Everyone was shouting. It wasn’t just a song. It was a war cry. A final, unified scream before the night gave way to silence again.
I stood there afterward, a little dazed, a little overwhelmed, completely full. Coheed didn’t just close the show. They cracked the sky open and invited us to see what was waiting inside. It wasn’t just performance. It was immersion. A world built from sound and memory and sweat and hope. And I didn’t want to leave.
As the last notes of “Welcome Home” echoed into the hills and the crowd slowly began to spill out onto the Berkeley streets, I felt a kind of stillness settle in. Not the empty kind, but the full kind. The kind that only comes after you’ve cried a little, screamed a little, and remembered pieces of yourself you forgot were still there.
Foxing peeled something open in all of us. Taking Back Sunday let us rage and grieve and feel young again. And Coheed reminded us that storytelling doesn’t have to make perfect sense to be true. We all came in carrying something. We left feeling a little lighter, a little louder, a little more alive.
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