Nightly Brought Dreamy Nostalgia-Pop to Chicago's House of Blues on Tour: A Concert Review
- Abby Anderson
- May 4
- 3 min read
Updated: May 9
Standing on stage at Chicago's House of Blues during soundcheck, Nightly lead singer Jonny Capeci snapped a picture of the stunning music hall and captioned the photo, "Dream venue tonight. Have wanted to headline here since we started the band." A few hours later, the room filled with dedicated fans dressed in shirts emblazoned with Nightly's signature keyboard-heart logo and all variations of eras past of the band's tour merchandise. Following sets from glittery spunky-pop singer Brooke Alexx and Tumblr-core indie-pop powerhouse MICO (and a preshow playlist stacked with everyone from The Cure to Tate McRae), the glitter cowboy-hat and space-bun adorned crowd fell into the hazy joy-daze conjured by the dimming blue lights and dreamy pools of light dappling the adorned balconies of the House of Blues.
From the opening notes of "tv shows," Nightly had the room entranced, embracing their dream crowd in something of a tangibly nostalgic joyful heartache, sharing a moment that felt so special that it was disappearing too fast. As they glistened through “the feeling,” the band, comprised of Capeci on lead vocals and guitar, Joey Beretta on lead guitar, and Nicholas Sainato on drums, came across as more humble and personable from the stage than many other bands in their echelon. Jonny wasted no time making moments between the lines of their smooth indie-pop set, reaching out to take a fans phone to record a video singing "hate my favorite band" with her from the stage and bantering through the gifting of a signed cowboy hat from the band to a fan before "gas station cowboy hats."
With this tour, the band is riding the tails of the release of their third studio album, songs to drive to, released in March of this year. The band flushed out their set with standouts from the project, like sultry guitar-driven "TALK" and retro, riffed-out "MESS," and fans embraced the newest releases with the same passion and adoration as the Nightly classics sprinkled across the set, like "dirty white chucks" and "the movies." This run is also their most ambitious collection of venues they've headlined, with Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on the horizon and New York's Webster Hall in the rearview. But the band didn't let the present moment pass them by, acknowleding to the crowd the gratitude they felt at growing from playing Chicago venues like Schubas Tavern to the Metro before arriving at this moment on the stage at House of Blues. Capeci shared his own personal thanks with the crowd, sharing his awe at the fact that "an independent band from Nashville can come to Chicago and play the House of Blues, so thank you."
The band hails from Nashville, the place Capeci joked is great "if you like live music and bachelorette parties." Pulling a piece from home into their life on the road, the band took inspiration from songwriter rounds in Music City for their rotating acoustic set. For the Chicago crowd, the band shared they would be playing fan-favorite "radiohead," followed by older deep cut, “Younger,” at the request of a persistent fan who DMed them on social media, "you wanna play 'Younger' in Chicago so bad."
Picking back up with full production with the duo of a cover of Smash Mouth's "All Star" and their own irresistable "like i do," Nightly built the crescendo of the back half of their set even higher. The band and the crowd seemed to want to grasp on to the moment for longer than it lasted as the opening pulsing notes of "Twenty Something" reverberated through the room, smiling through the songs tangibly sentimental lines, "All I know is that with you there's something / And that will never slow down." The tone turned from sentimental to carefree as the band introduced their last song, dancing through the glittering notes of “where do we go from here.” Capeci hopped down from the stage to stand on the barricade and smiled at the crowd in front of him, exclaiming, “Chicago, let me hear you one more time!” As Jonny, Joey, and Nicholas took their final bow, Chicago’s House of Blues felt less like a venue and more like a fading moment turned to a memory, one where music and the dreams it turns to reality lingered long after the lights went down.
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