published in The Daily Californian on October 23, 2025
There are a few ways to see Wednesday on a Saturday: getting really drunk and staring at your Google Calendar, going on a date with someone who has the misfortune of sharing a name with a day of the week and the best option of all, seeing the Asheville-based band Wednesday at Oakland’s Fox Theater.
Fresh off of its sixth studio album, Bleeds, the band’s stop in the Bay Area came after a night in Los Angeles — but don’t fret, lead singer Karly Hartzman made it abundantly clear that Saturday night’s crowd was a lot less “dead” than our neighbors down south.
Amid a sea of baby bangs and mustaches, throngs of 20-somethings waited patiently for Wednesday’s set, which quite frankly, took a while. In the meantime, the crowd swayed softly to the twangy stylings of Philly-based band Friendship, fronted by Dan Wriggins, and gazed awkwardly upon SASAMI’s hard to watch performance. With two opening acts, the five-piece — technically, four-piece, since guitarist MJ Lenderman no longer tours with the group — didn’t take the stage until a little past 10 p.m., but it was well worth the wait.
In front of me, a group of friends had grown restless enough to start doing pushups in the walkway. To my right, people were slumped against the railing, staring listlessly at the floor. But then, we all heard the thrashing cacophony that is the intro to “Reality TV Argument Bleeds,” off of this year’s new release; the entire crowd visibly straightened up. What we had been anticipating all night had finally started, and Wednesday’s first impression was nothing short of a good time.
Sounding exactly like it does in studio recordings, if not even better, Wednesday performs like a well-oiled machine. It’s far from robotic, but each member of the band seems to exist on a plane of existence inhabited only by their other bandmates — it’s like they’re all tuned in to the same radio frequency, one indicative of years of practice and chemistry.
At a Wednesday show, tenderness runs abound. I could see it in the way the band laughed off Hartzman’s early start to a chorus during “Got Shocked,” in the way their eyes twinkled and they gave each other knowing grins.
I could see it in the way Hartzman shouted out the openers, giving little anecdotes on how they all met. She detailed meeting Wriggins — “also known as Mr. Chill,” she affectionately said as she invited him on stage to sing backing vocals on “Phish Pepsi” — at his Philadelphia apartment. She recalled meeting SASAMI somewhere on the outskirts of Austin, at a picnic table after South by Southwest.
Most of all, I could see it in the way Hartzman didn’t shy away from showing what side of history Wednesday stands on amid an increasingly conservative political climate. “F— ICE … F— A.I. … and free Palestine!” she yelled, the cheers and whoops of impassioned concertgoers echoed off the grandiose walls of the Fox Theater.
Chatty and treating an audience of thousands like her closest friends, Hartzman truly deserves an award for frontwoman of the year. Her comfort seemed to put her bandmates at ease and her lightheartedness seemed to radiate through the space.
Hartzman has an uncanny ability to read the room. Mid-set, Wednesday pulled into a little group huddle to switch up its planned setlist — opting to play the raucous “Toothache” instead of “Twin Plagues,” a mellower track played in previous shows. To the dismay of yearners everywhere, this also meant cutting “The Way Love Goes,” about Hartzman’s breakup with bandmate Lenderman — who was also the subject of a recent essay she wrote for the magazine “Vulture.”
To get to see Wednesday live is to experience magic in the making. For an hour and a half, it’s like being granted membership into a little secret club. For that hour and a half, nothing matters but the music. Like Hartzman croons in their song “Elderberry Wine,” “Everybody gets along just fine” at a Wednesday show.
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