You know you’ve attended a great show when a casual fan can walk out a new devotee.
The Riviera Theatre was overflowing with fans of Good Kid and opening band INOHA. I heard from a fellow photographer that the line to enter at the show’s door time wrapped around the entire building — easily believable if you saw the mile-long merch line once inside the venue.
A relatively age- and gender-diverse audience packed the approximately 2,500 capacity main auditorium; they all shared in common a rowdy, animated energy. Stuffed animals were being whipped in the air, fans were chatting, everyone was smiling — only to completely lose their minds when opening band INOHA entered the stage.
Hailing from San Antonio, the 4-piece indie rock band played a modest set to the crowd of adoring fans, many of whom knew every word to the songs they screamed. Much to the chagrin of the soon-to-be-exhausted security staff in the photo pit, INOHA demanded that Chicago put its energy on full display with crowdsurfing. The band effortlessly sailed through their set and left the crowd positively buzzing with excitement.
INOHA and crowdsurfing.
Now at this point, it was already quite warm. People were dancing, singing, crowd surfing, and being generally rowdy, and the temperature in the room rose quickly. I briefly left the auditorium to both get some air and reload a film camera I was experimenting with for the show. At the corner of the bar that I was able to monopolize for this process, a fellow photographer and Good Kid fan approached, and we began chatting. I quickly learned that Good Kid fans are in a league of their own: he drove 12 hours from Maryland to Illinois to be able to shoot this show after being in contact with the band’s tour photographer, Evie. Given that this show was their last stop in the U.S. on this tour, I would not be remotely surprised to hear similar stories from other fans. I heard stories about what it was like to attend other stops on the tour, fan meetups, and the band’s vibrant online community that painted an extremely welcoming and heartwarming picture of what it means to be a Good Kid fan (..are fans called Good Kids?).
We migrated back into the theatre to prepare for photographing Good Kid and stumbled into a library-style reading of Lord of the Rings from Good Kid’s frontman, Nick Frosst. The audience, completely geeked to see him reading to them as if he were a spectacled librarian, was surprisingly attentive given their excitement.
Jacob Tsafatinos, one of the band’s two guitarists, snuck onto stage to rope Frosst away a-la cane pull to let him know it was time to go. The two jogged off stage, leaving just a few minutes until showtime.
The room went dark, maybe darker than usual. A series of TVs stacked together at the front of the room began displaying a poorly received alert message: Dancing is disruptive to your neighbors; smiling and singing along are not permitted. Keep your enjoyment of the performance internal while standing still. The crowd erupted in shouts and boos, clearly affirming their pro-dance and pro-enjoyment stance. And thank goodness they did, because as Good Kid’s 5-piece band flooded the stage, the energy flowing from the crowd set the tone for the entire evening.
The Canadian band, composed of singer Nick Frosst, guitarists Jacob Tsafatinos and David Wood, drummer Jon Kereliuk, and bassist Michael Kozakov, immediately jumped into their 18-song set, opening with Wall.
Good Kid's members.
The crowd surfers did not hesitate to begin riding through the sea of fans; I am almost positive I saw both children and adults riding the wave. And who could blame them? The scene was set perfectly for that energy, with the band firing off bubbles and confetti throughout their set. 6 songs into the set, frontman Frosst even took a turn crowdsurfing.
Staff brought out a large inflatable raft for which there could only be one purpose. It was set into the hands of fans center stage and was promptly thrashed about the room, seemingly instilling fear into Frosst who was about to be in that very same raft. The boat was returned with some encouragement, and Frosst carefully loaded himself into the boat. This surf was not without purpose: the direction fans sailed Frosst would determine what fan-selected song was going to be played next. What came next almost looked like a scene out of World War Z as hundreds (probably actually dozens) reached towards the boat to help steer it. Between the two song options presented to them, fans carried Frosst (with shocking grace) towards stage left, choosing No Time To Explain as their song.
How Frosst successfully sailed back onto the stage is still a mystery to me. In chatting with another photographer, I learned that at a different show they had attended as a fan that the game utilized to select a song was a crane machine game (which ended up smashed on the floor after multiple failed attempts to pick a song out of the pool).
Their show was on the longer side, and I succumbed to the stuffy heat of the room after only about 40 minutes. But in my 40 minutes there, I experienced the pure joy of a Good Kid show in what felt like its entirety (though I quickly learned from other photographers’ Instagram stories that, in fact, they had more antics up their sleeve after I made my exit). Continuing to make security work hard for their pay, Good Kid opened up a wall of death (Good Kid version, of course), invited a fan on stage to perform Osmosis with a fan shredding the song on a Guitar Hero clone, and even performed from various points on the balcony hanging above the crowd.
You absolutely did not need to be a hardcore Good Kid fan to enjoy the show. Their welcoming energy and vibrant fanbase did all of the heavy lifting to ensure the atmosphere was extremely enjoyable, engaging, and easily made one feel they belonged. While their U.S. tour has sadly concluded, they have a small handful of nights in Canada this week before a well-deserved break. In September 2026, they’ll be bringing the party to Europe with Australian indie-pop rock band Last Dinosaurs. You can find Good Kid’s latest project, Can We Hang Out Sometime? streaming on your favorite platforms (with the full album available for fans, free on YouTube).
Check out the full Chicago setlist on Setlist.fm.
