Tempe, Arizona, may be home to Arizona State University, but I prefer to call it the home of the Innings Festival. It started in 2017 and has happened nearly every year (excluding 2021) since. In recent years, it has expanded to a two-weekend event, with the first weekend typically has an early 2000s punk rock vibe and the second weekend has more country artists. Happening the last weekend of February and the first weekend of March, it lines up with baseball spring training here in Arizona. For baseball fans, you can always find a few star players in attendance to chat with festival goers. For food lovers, there is a wide array of food trucks and stands in attendance where you can get anything from pad thai, to mac and cheese, tacos, elote, and more.
For my second year in attendance, my friends and I opted to go big and get VIP tickets. Last year two of us managed to score free VIP tickets in a raffle and realized the cost difference was most definitely worth it. Yes, free beer and seltzers are certainly a selling point, but having real bathrooms instead of porta potties and private bleacher seats to view each stage away from the crowd were the real winning points for me.
My favorite thing about music festivals is seeing acts I haven’t heard of before. We started Day 1 with Jack Kays, who delightfully blew me away. After his set, we skipped over to the other stage to catch Neon Trees. Transparently, I haven’t listened to the Neon Trees regularly since the early 2010s, but their energy and stage presence wowed me away and they end up being one of my favorite sets.
We took a quick food and drink break before seeing the All-American Rejects. They were high on my list of must-sees at this festival, and they did not disappoint. Their lead singer was comical throughout the set, keeping the audience engaged in between songs and interacting with individuals in the crowd. For those who have never been, Innings Fest takes place on Tempe Town Lake and this specific stage sits right on the edge of the water. With this, you run into a few ingenious individuals who will sit on paddle boards or kayaks to catch a specific set without having to pay for the whole weekend. The lead signer spotted a few individuals doing such and called them out for their cheap genius which received quite a few laughs from the crowd.
The rest of day one involved some significant back and forth between the stages to see Incubus, The Black Keys, and Fall Out Boy. I must confess, I am not the most knowledgable individual when it comes to knowing Incubus, so I took that set easy and sat for a bit to give my feet a break. However, The Black Keys were incredible to see live. With that said, I don’t think anything quite came close to Fall Out Boy.
Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, and the rest of the gang certainly know how to put on a show. This may have been one of the most elaborate, if not the most, sets of the weekend. Whether it was a giant inflatable unicorn being lowered from the ceiling, cheerleaders on stage, or the many pyrotechnics, I don’t think there was a single bored individual in the crowd. They even pulled a teenage boy on stage to let him play guitars during one of their songs, which he absolutely crushed.
For Day 2, we arrived just in time to see The Kills (not the image to the left sorry). Yet another band I didn’t know before coming to the festival, they were incredibly fun to see live. This rock duo were quite entertaining to see live and were worth arriving a bit earlier than originally intended.
However, the pièce de résistance for Day 2 was undoubtedly The Killers. As seen above, the entire crowd held up flashlights, setting an ambiance that can only be achieved at a concert. It was a much less chaotic set than the headliner on Day 1, but it was a fantastic way to end the weekend. Let’s be real, there isn’t much on Earth that beats the feeling of screaming along to My Brightside live with your best friends.
Be sure to give me a follow on IG (@good.life.review) to see live updates at events and follow along for more content 🙂