Concert Reviews

Overheard among the crowd leaving the Neko Case concert Thursday night: “She’s got some pipes!”

Neko Case, with Des Demonas, at the Wilbur Theatre, Boston, Oct. 23, 2025.

Overheard among the crowd leaving the Neko Case concert at The Wilbur Thursday night: “She’s got some pipes!” That’s the understatement of the year.

Taking to the unadorned stage — no screens, light shows, or choreography for her, thank you — Case and her five-piece band hung the entire 90-minute show on the miracle of her own voice, and the way she uses it to deliver the dark, dreamy, and sometimes downright weird, misty lullabies that only she could have devised. To say it worked is also an understatement. 

It probably didn’t hurt that the artist (abetted by some take-no-prisoners Wilbur ushers) requested that phones be put away for the duration of the show. Without the now-typical sea of screens to harsh the vibe, Case’s sought-after feedback loop between artist and audience was fully engaged, and the crowd of mostly GenX, clearly dedicated fans didn’t seem to miss their devices in the least.

I’m pretty sure they would have been absorbed no matter what, though. Case comes across on stage as completely without artifice, from her disarming between-songs banter to the surprised-sounding “Thank you!” and polite bow she offered for every ovation. But that belies the mastery she displays during the songs themselves: She simply embodies them, hitting notes that you have to give her credit for even choosing to include when she wrote them in the first place. In between, she tossed off lyrics like “He died because I murdered him” like that’s something anybody might say in casual conversation.

That line is from “Bracing for Sunday,” her driving exploration of grief, violence, and depression from 2013’s “The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You” — which, when you read that description of the track, doesn’t make it sound like an ideal opener, necessarily. But it set the tone for the take-no-prisoners attitude Case’s music brings along with it wherever it goes.

After digging into her catalog for that and “People Got a Lotta Nerve,” her jangly ode to man-eating killer whales from her 2009 masterpiece “Middle Cyclone,” Case began her dive into the material from her new album, “Neon Grey Midnight Green.” First was a stunning twang-noir take on “Louise,” capped off with the saddest “daaaaarling” you’ve ever heard sung. 

It was one of nine songs she included from the album, and they were an absolutely highlight of the night — the new songs managed to sound as lived-in as Case’s big cardigan sweater, which looked like maybe the most comfortable sweater ever? (“I have a sleek and exciting tour outfit underneath,” she assured us.)

Later, “Little Gears,” about the evolutionary marvel that is a spider, provided the perfect showcase for Case’s casual vocal brilliance, in addition to providing one of the many existential lyrical questions she’s so good at dropping: “Why do people need to feel so important all the time?” And “Tomboy Gold” — with its discordant sax, off-kilter percussion, and almost-a cappella ramblings about timing guns and walk signs — probably shouldn’t have worked, but wound up being a riveting respite in between the thumping beauty of “Neon Grey Midnight Green” and the more raucous pleasures of the album’s first single, the realistically romantic “Wreck.”

The band’s wall of sound was particularly effective on “Wreck,” but they were locked in all night, with Adam Schatz’s keyboards (he also played sax) in particular filling any holes left by the absence of the orchestra that accompanied Case on the full album. Nora O’Connor, on guitar and backing vocals, meanwhile, was simply perfect, her vocal contributions mostly subtle but standing out exactly when they needed to — particularly on a languid, enchanting “Magpie to the Morning.” (Case’s longtime collaborator Paul Rigby’s guitar work was another standout on that number, and throughout the night.)

Other showpieces from the new record included the seasonally appropriate “Baby, I’m Not (A Werewolf)” (Narrator: She definitely is a werewolf), and the evocative “Match-Lit,” whose description of the lost art of match-striking —  “It flows out of your arm like a cursive explosion” — is just one of the stunning things about that paean to lost friends, which she described as being “full of ghosts.” The unsentimental “Rusty Mountain,” meanwhile, built wonderfully to its ending promise to “build this rusty mountain ’til we smoke cigarettes on the sun,” followed by more words to live by: “We all deserve better than some love song.”

Case threaded the new material through an exquisite collection of older songs, including a “Deep Red Bells,” off 2002’s “Blacklisted,” that was honky-tonk heaven, and “This Tornado Loves You,” which provided a stunning spotlight for her crystal-clear vocals. (Props to the sound engineers!) The way Case planted herself at the mic before kicking into that number, one of her signature songs, was evidence of her dogged determination: This tornado was ready to do some damage.

It’s worth noting that on record, Case’s vocals seem almost otherworldly, so much so that you can forget they’re emanating from an actual human. That’s one of the reasons it’s so thrilling to see the very real conviction behind the words as she delivers them live on stage. Whether she’s pounding a tom-tom with a mallet on a wild “Lady Pilot” or leaning into the hypnotic charms of a dreamy “That Teenage Feeling” and a magical “I Wish I Was the Moon,” she was utterly present — and the audience, resplendent in their phonelessness, responded in kind. 

Opening for Case was the Washington, D.C. band Des Demonas, who eventually won over the crowd with a heady mix of new wave synths, garage-punk crunch, and funky backbeats, and whose frontman Jacky “Cougar” Abok exuded a compelling sort of anti-charisma even as he strolled the stage for most of the performance, looking like he might have been giving a Ted Talk. (He also asked the crowd an extremely pertinent question: “If you don’t like American history or sports, what is there to do in Boston?”)

Setlist for Neko Case at the Wilbur Theatre, Oct. 23, 2025:

• Bracing for Sunday
• People Got a Lotta Nerve
• Louise
• Deep Red Bells
• This Tornado Loves You
• Little Gears
• Baby, I’m Not (A Werewolf)
• Ragtime
• Magpie to the Morning
• I’m an Animal
• Destination
• Lady Pilot
• Oh, Shadowless
• That Teenage Feeling
• Rusty Mountain
• Match-Lit
• Neon Grey Midnight Green
• Tomboy Gold
• Wreck
• Star Witness

ENCORE:

• I Wish I Was the Moon
• Hold On, Hold On
• At Last

Peter Chianca

General Assignment Editor

Peter Chianca, Boston.com’s general assignment editor since 2019, is a longtime news editor, columnist, and music writer in the Greater Boston area.

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