THE USED with Rebuilder
House of Blues
Boston, MA
04.11.25
LIVE REVIEW BY SAM COHEN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEREMY SAFFER
The Used celebrated night two of their 25th Anniversary Tour at the House of Blues in Boston by playing to a sold out crowd, featuring the album In Love and Death (2004). The energy felt different than it did on night one, but the excitement was still palpable even if it was slightly less charged. Similar to night one, The Used played an opening video that featured clips of the band—most notably Jeph Howard—discussing how grateful they were for their success interspersed with videos of them performing live in the early 2000s.
The night was also particularly special, as Boston based Rebuilder rocked the house as the opening act. People in the audience who were previously unfamiliar with the band were immediately drawn into their atmosphere. It was one of those magnetic moments where you could see people becoming fans in real time.
When Howard, Bert McCracken, Joey Bradford, and Dan Whitesides took the stage, it looked like they just had a plain black background displaying the band’s name. It wasn’t until after the boisterous performance of the first track, “Take It Away,” that a massive red heart reminiscent of the In Love and Death album art lit up behind Whitesides’ drum kit. The heart would glow and pulse throughout the evening and felt like the perfect backdrop for the second track of the night, “I Caught Fire,” which is more melodic.
Where night one was raucous and exuberant, night two was more of an emotional affair. McCracken still made jokes in between songs, saying things like, “Tonight we will be playing songs from In Love and Death, here’s a song off In Love and Death,” which were met with immediate laughter from the crowd. But there were touching interludes as well. McCracken spoke of a pet chihuahua that had passed away when they were recording the album and how it “broke my fucking heart to pieces,” before he dedicated the song “All That I’ve Got” to the dog.Perhaps the most heartwarming moment occurred when McCracken invited two young fans on stage with him during “Cut Up Angels,” and it was clear by the looks on his and their faces that it was something they would all remember forever.
There was a good balance of crowd participation, though not as frequent or as loud as the singalongs that occurred on night one. It felt like the perfect balance of mood and atmosphere, though, given the more emotional tone of these songs. McCracken would often pause and look around at the crowd, pointing to people and waving, or collecting notes and small items people had thrown onto the stage while he was singing. After grabbing two things out of the air, he joked, “That’s right, I play sports. Which sports do you play, Bert? All of them.”
The harder songs on the record invited headbanging and circle pits, and the softer ones allowed for people to gather close and enjoy the simple aspect of being in the same place at the same time as each other. There was one point where McCracken acknowledged a fan in the front row and thanked them for singing all the words to all the songs, and another where he said we should all take a second to remember the people we’ve loved and lost as they rest in peace. Given the personal context of his life during the recording of In Love and Death, it felt like a particularly poignant moment.
Closing out the show with “I’m a Fake” was a highlight of the night, as the entire room joined McCracken to recite the opening spoken word part of the song. By the time everyone got to the last lines, “Love is not like anything, especially a fucking knife,” the energy lifted, carrying all of us into the atmosphere together again.
Night two, like night one, served as a reminder of why The Used has had such consistent longevity. They are who they have always been, and they’ve never shied away from that, even as they’ve healed, grown, and evolved.
