Consequence’s Annual Report continues with a roundup of the most memorable live performances of 2024. As the year winds down, we’ve got tons of awards, lists, and interviews about the best music, film, and TV 2024 had to offer, including our list of the 200 Best Songs of the Year.
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The best moments in live music are the unpredictable ones.
Sometimes, they arrive in the form of a surprise, like Vampire Weekend’s last minute Coachella appearance where they brought Paris Hilton and an Abraham Lincoln impersonator onstage to play cornhole. Or maybe they’re a reunion that you never saw coming, like Slayer returning for a trio of festival dates, or it’s the giddy feeling of watching Gojira absolutely rip it during the 2024 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony. Or it’s just Kendrick Lamar doing “Not Like Us” at his Pop Out concert not once, not twice, but five times.
In 2024, there were so many performances reminded us of the magic of live music, and those unexpected moments were what made the year so particularly special. Look no further than the humor employed by Sabrina Carpenter on her “Short n’ Sweet Tour,” where she would sing a different “Nonsense” ad-lib every night, peppered her show with hilarious ’50s-inspired sketches, and stunned the city of New York with the aside, “Should we talk about how I got the mayor indicted?”
Even in a live music market riddled with uncertainty, 2024 gave us a rewarding look into the future of the medium. No success story has been more potent to witness than Chappell Roan’s, who single-handedly dominated festivals in 2024 and drew some of the largest non-headlining crowds those events have ever seen. Plus, loads of new, smaller bands caught our attention. Ever wondered what it’s like to see a punk rock show with two drummers, no guitarists, and maniacal synths? Allow us to introduce you to Lip Critic, New York City’s boldest new band.
From artists large and small, old and new, there were so many moments to treasure in live music this year. In alphabetical order, here are the live shows that captivated us the most in 2024.
— Paolo Ragusa
Associate Editor
ATEEZ’s “Towards the Light: Will to Power” Tour
ATEEZ, photo by KQ Entertainment
Anyone seeking to understand how to break through — and maintain — momentum in the saturated touring market should look to ATEEZ as an example. The K-pop powerhouses leveled up with their 2024 “Towards the Light: Will to Power” tour, a theatrical journey that showed off what exactly it is that makes this eight-member act so special. With energetic performances, engaging visuals, and relentlessly crisp vocals, the outing felt like a true athletic achievement for Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Yunho, Yeosang, San, Mingi, Wooyoung and Jongho. What’s more, the 2024 trek featured the band’s North American stadium debut, a victory that served as the ultimate confirmation of their arrival to the big leagues (on the heels of a killer Coachella debut, no less). ATEEZ refuse to play by many traditional K-pop rules, and with 2024 offering so much success, there’s no need for them to start now. — Mary Siroky
Editor’s Note: Get ATEEZ tickets here.
Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s “Sweat” Tour
Charli XCX and Troye Sivan, photo by Henry Redcliffe for Live Nation
Take a hyper-pop hitmaker and Aussie multi-hyphenate out on the road, give them a cage and some sexy backup dancers, and you’ve got a recipe for success. The co-headlined “Sweat” tour was undeniably the pop party of the year, a steamy celebration of the kind of night out many of us can only dream up. Charli XCX and Troye Sivan transformed arenas into raves with their tandem trek, bouncing back and forth between different forms of feral. For Charli, it was the catharsis of a heavy beat and a strobe light; for Sivan, a lingering kiss and the promise of more to come. The “Sweat” tour was a seductive smash that gripped the cultural conversation and refused to let go throughout its duration. – M. Siroky
Get Charli XCX tickets here.
Chat Pile’s Cool World Tour
Chat Pile, photo by Michael Watson
Looking for a show where you can mosh your heart out, contemplate the ramifications of our modern manner of living, and learn cool-ass movie facts about your city from a dude with no shirt on? Don’t worry, Chat Pile’s got you covered. Each night, the quartet of Raygun Busch, Luther Manhole, Stin, and Cap’n Ron jump on stage with no setlist — only pure, unadulterated, sludgy-as-hell noise rock. The atmosphere of whatever club is lucky enough to have them becomes electric as the band attacks fans’ eyes and ears with a presence that’s at once intense and fun-loving. Busch’s vocal performance is particularly entrancing; It’s damn near impossible to look away as he prances around the stage, half-slurring his way through the gnarly tunes. The Oklahoma City act has deservedly garnered attention thanks to their killer releases (it’s why we named them our October CoSign), but their live show is what’s going to make Chat Pile your favorite fucking band. — Jonah Krueger
Get Chat Pile tickets here.
Chappell Roan at Every Major US Festival
Chappell Roan, photos by Matthew Shelter, Amy Harris, Joshua Druding
A fascinating video made the rounds on social media this year depicting Chappell Roan performing her now-Platinum single “Pink Pony Club” at a small pride parade in 2021 — no band, no crazy outfits, no real stage, just Chappell and her keyboard performing in earnest. Comparing that to the sea of festival goers belting the words to “Pink Pony Club” at Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, Bonnaroo, Governors Ball, Boston Calling, and Austin City Limits this year is astounding. The crowd sizes were one thing; Chappell genuinely meeting the moment with scorching I’m That Bitch™ performances was another. She proved time and again this year that her catalogue, from “Naked in Manhattan” to “My Kink Is Karma” and “HOT TO GO!” to “Good Luck, Babe!”, is right up there with the headliners you may have paid $350 to see. Live music in 2024 saw a lot of highs, but Chappell Roan’s rise was unforgivable. — P. Ragusa
Get Chappell Roan tickets here.
Green Day’s Saviors Tour
Green Day, photo by Kevin RC Wilson
Fans were almost guaranteed a memorable night seeing Green Day perform Dookie and American Idiot in their entireties during the “Saviors” tour, but Billie Joe Armstrong and company went above and beyond to celebrate their two biggest albums. The show featured a magnificent stage design that completely switched over from one album to the other, including an inflatable airplane flying over the crowd during the Dookie set and a giant inflatable hand holding a grenade heart during the American Idiot portion of the concert. Throw in excellent support from the Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid, and the Linda Lindas, and you had arguably the rock concert event of the summer. – Spencer Kaufman
Get Green Day tickets here.
Jack White’s No Name Tour
Jack White, photo by David James Swanson
Jack White, our 2024 Artist of the Year, has conquered this year in his own way. That includes dropping No Name, his back-to-basics new album, via unmarked vinyl records secretly included in other Third Man Records purchases, as well as the club tour he embarked on under the name “Johnny Guitar” to support the project. The chance to see White in such a tight, loaded space like Washington D.C.’s 9:30 Club is a perfect conduit for the barnstorming blues rock found in No Name, and with a new band behind him, White sounds as visceral as ever. Luckily, with another tour on the way, Johnny Guitar will keep rocking through 2025. — P. Ragusa
Get Jack White tickets here.
Kendrick Lamar: The Pop Out Concert
Kendrick Lamar, Photo by Timothy Norris/ Getty Images for pgLang, Amazon Music, & Free Lunch
It was easy enough to slide past the line in “Not Like Us” where Kendrick Lamar reminds Drake (and his audience) “Sometimes you gotta pop out and show n****s,” but King Kendrick decided to make that hypothetical real this year by hosting his star-studded Inglewood show, The Pop Out: Ken & Friends, on Juneteenth. Lamar has already enjoyed his fair share of victory lap performances, but this one felt different; it was a concerted effort to highlight not just Lamar’s indisputable catalog, but the barrage of West Coast talent that he represents.
As such, it was the LA rap show of the century: Three hours, 25 guests, five consecutive renditions of “Not Like Us,” and thousands of eager eyes watching the Amazon Music livestream as Lamar cements his superstar status over and over again. Within the feud, it was the cherry on top — but even outside of it, The Pop Out show was an inimitable celebration of talent, family, and hip-hop legacy. — P. Ragusa
Get Kendrick Lamar tickets here.
Lip Critic’s Hex Dealer Tour
Lip Critic, photo by Nicole Miller
As we learned in their CoSign profile, Lip Critic are masters of turning bad ideas into even worse ideas, which then, in turn, somehow blossom into perfect ideas. Case in point, their stage show, which consists of two drummers, two sample stations, and a couple of microphones. Not only is it a logistical nightmare for a band of their size to lug around two full kits, but they’re a punk-adjacent group that has no live guitars? They must be jesting. And yet, they’re still able to come through with one of the most invigorating live shows in recent memory. With mid-song instrument shifts, the wild antics of vocalist Bret Kaser, new versions of their songs that sound like they’ve been re-imagined from the ground up, and not a single break, it’s no wonder that Joe Talbot called Lip Critic one of the best live bands working today during IDLES’ underplay at the Bowery Ballroom. — J. Krueger
Get Lip Critic tickets here.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet Tour
Sabrina Carpenter, photo via STUFISH Studios
With the success of her ultra-viral singles “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” coupled with the widespread acclaim of her album Short ‘n Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter’s 2024 tour would have been packed even if she had chosen to phone it in a little bit. But, thankfully, the pint-sized pop star delivered perhaps the most fun pop show of the year, an impeccably designed evening that leaned into throwback visuals and comedic bits where Carpenter presented herself as the center of a stage-bound screwball comedy. Over the course of a single, sensual evening, she sang through the set of a white high-rise apartment with the ability to channel ’60s nostalgia, ’70s dance party, or ’80s glam — but no matter how Carpenter was leaning, the results were a home run. — M. Siroky
Get Sabrina Carpenter tickets here.
“Sting 3.0” Tour
Sting, photo by Spencer Kaufman
Sting had quite the year for himself: He played shows with Billy Joel, released a collab with Snoop Dogg, headlined multiple festivals, and embarked on a special “Sting 3.0” tour. The Police were one of my favorite bands as a kid, so I was excited to see Sting play an intimate venue like the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, on October 12th. I ended up being blown away by how great a show it was. At 73-years-old, Sting looked and sounded amazing as he delivered a near-perfect set of Police classics and solo favorites. With the singer-bassist performing as part of a three-piece alongside guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas, the concert had some serious Police vibes, leaving me singing along to songs like “So Lonely” and “King of Pain” like I was a kid again. — S. Kaufman
Get Sting tickets here.
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