Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan had the line of the night during the Kilby Block Party 2025 first-ever Thursday event, and it came before night even fell. Noting the presence of turn-of-the’80s staples New Order and Devo at the top of the bill, Kaplan, 68, then quipped, “It’s nice that Kilby is giving a young band like ourselves a shot.”
Indeed, the alternative-music tapas of this abbreviated first night did skew older than the festival’s typical demographic, both in the talent and the audience. It was billed as a legacy night, with the four main touring acts dating back at least 20 years. (OK, 19 ½ for Future Islands, but who’s counting?) Festival organizers are considering it an experiment of sorts, and judging by the staggering turnout and rapturous reception these artists received, I’d say it’s a successful tweak to Kilby’s formula.
My evening started with Yo La Tengo, Hoboken’s finest, who opened their set at the Lake Stage with the screeching feedback and blissed-out noise of “Big Day Coming” and ended it with the guitar freak-out of “Ohm,” filling these bookends with partly a greatest-hits set and partly a tour through their many avenues of musical influence—a tall order for a 50-minute show. This included the infectious shuffle of “Autumn Sweater,” the honeyed ballad “Aselestine,” the sunny psychedelia of the Harry Nilsson-esque “Shades of Blue” and the vintage AM-radio soul anthem “Mr. Tough.” “Fallout” segued into an interstellar instrumental interlude, which threaded straight into “Sugarcube,” just one example of a band wasting nary a second of its too-short set.
Scroll to see the photo gallery by Natalie Simpson | Beehive Photo
The evening leaving little time for catching one’s breath, I had five minutes to trek to the Kilby Stage just as Future Islands entered the chorus of their opener, “King of Sweden.” To be fair to this quartet, I should give equal weight in my praise to the instrumentalists onstage, especially the dreamy shimmer of Gerrit Welmers’ keyboards and Michael Lowry’s flawlessly executed four-on-the-floor dancehall drumming, but let’s be honest: Like most who have caught a Future Islands gig, I could scarcely take my eyes off of vocalist and songwriter Samuel T. Herring.
Future Islands. Photo by Natalie Simpson | Beehive Photo
“Force of nature” only begins to describe this guy’s gladiatorial charisma. From jogging in place to balletic twirling, from vogueing like a 1980s fashion model to kicking like a Rockette, Herring was a perpetual motion machine, clearly feeding off the crowd’s adoration and vice versa. More than on his albums, he sang certain notes in a guttural death-metal growl, and was never approached as a novelty: He seemed, at times, to be exorcising his own demons. He belongs in the lineage of other great non-instrumentalist singers such as Henry Rollins and Morrissey, but he exceeds both in ageless exuberance. Herring didn’t simply graduate with honors from Frontman School; he wrote the curriculum.
I expected excellence from DEVO, having seen them a few years ago at a music festival in California, and they did not disappoint. The group is steeped in retro-futuristic fashion signifiers that bled from stage to crowd; the most faithful fans in the DEVO cult had been sporting iconic red energy domes for hours leading up to the set. The band entered initially wearing identical black suits emblazoned with an energy-dome icon that, not coincidentally, resembled a cryptic corporate logo. Videos evoking the VHS era projected behind the band, including an interlude straight of a Carl Sagan documentary, with astronomical data on the enormity of the cosmos and Earth’s infinitesimal place in it, to which Devo is “an insignificant blemish with a lifespan too short to mention,” the voice-over opines. After this bit of self-effacing humor, the group returned in their familiar yellow jumpsuits, which they promptly began to shed.
DEVO performed with the polish of a band that has played the same set—with minor variations for set length—hundreds of times: It was loud, in your face, tightly choreographed and damned infectious, with the musicians adjusting their playing style to fit the song, from Josh Freese’s caveman drumming on “Down Under” to the deliberately apelike synthesizer playing on “Are We Not Men?,” a highlight among highlights.
DEVO. Photo by Natalie Simpson | Beehive Photo
The night culminated with New Order, and while it’s unfathomable to imagine the group as anything but the main headliner, they showed why, for so many artists at so many festivals, DEVO is a tough act to follow. Don’t get me wrong—I love New Order’s music, and there was enough to like in the legendary synthpop act’s career-spanning set, especially in the bells-and-whistles department, such as the elaborate light show that blanketed the audience, and the often-trippy videos that accompanied the songs.
But having finally seen New Order live for the first time, I tend to agree with former bassist Peter Hook, who split acrimoniously from the band in 2007, that the version without him underwhelms. Part of it was the low energy coming from the stage. I felt a weariness in leader Bernard Sumner’s singing and presence, and his comparatively toothless vocals on the smattering of Joy Division songs in the set list only underscored how irreplaceable Ian Curtis was. Furthermore, Sumner’s vocals were too low in the mix, and the sound was often muddy and inconsistent, cresting high and then curiously dropping out before retaining its proper volume. Despite an unexpected cameo from guest vocalist Brandon Flowers, of the Killers, on “Bizarre Love Triangle,” the show began to resemble a subpar bootleg recording.
The general vibe in the Fairpark didn’t seem to mind, with spontaneous dance parties popping up everywhere. Crowds can forgive a lot when the music itself is so wonderful; certain substances probably didn’t hurt either. Nor did the absolutely idyllic weather, with a couple of tiny flirtations with rain on an otherwise overcast evening. Many took advantage of the agreeable climate to relax on loungers shaped like Andy Warhol’s famous banana painting from the Velvet Underground’s debut LP; fight gravity on themed pinball machines in the arcade bar alcove in the VIP lounge; and play beer pong with enormous red Solo cups—activities I hope to enjoy over another jam-packed Kilby weekend ahead.
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