Nada Surf rides buoyant wave of melancholy, remembered angst and finally something akin to peace
Nada Surf
May 2, 2025The Grog Shop, Cleveland
Opener: The Cle Elum
All of us, even the popular ones, remember what it was like to be a teenager, full of angst and anger and perpetually poised to lash out. If you grew up nerdy in the ’90s, like I did, Nada Surf provided part of the soundtrack to your tumultuous and tangled up teen emotions with songs like the breakthrough hit “Popular” on their 1996 debut album “High/Low.”
That angsty, repressed teenage trauma never really goes away—just like how those ’90s anthems of anxiety likely will always have a place in the setlist of a Nada Surf show. Those emotions deepen, evolve, mutate and, if we’re lucky, mature into something more manageable or even magical. That arc is reflected in the ever-expanding musical mentality of Nada Surf, which on a tour to promote its 10th studio album “Moon Mirror,” brought a buoyant blend of their discography and a roller-coaster of “feels” to a show at Cleveland’s Grog Shop.
But first, the show opened with a band story that’s about as rock ’n’ roll as I ever recall, as indie/alternative The Cle Elum, fronted by Ian Lee on electric guitar and vocals and Sarah Sargent Pepper on drums, teed up the “be back soon” sign at the merch table and took the stage. When they’re not performing, the husband/wife duo are the tour/merch managers for Nada Surf (as well as many other top acts).
In a snazzy Sharpie-scrawled jumpsuit featuring lyrics from the band’s debut album “It’s OK If It Falls Apart,” Lee lit up the stage with energetic earworms such as “Did I Get High” and “Handclaps & Tambourines,” in addition to the immediately iconic title track, powered by his Ozzy-esque vocals over a KISS musicality punctuated with a punk mentality. And, excuse me, respectfully, but is there anything hotter than a girl on drums? As the lyric on “H&T” goes: “just put the sticks in her hands. I don’t care what the words mean. All I need is some handclaps and tambourines.”
The Cle Elum is a band that’s going places, and I, for one, am thrilled to be on the bus.
Nada Surf, behind lead vocalist and guitarist Matthew Caws, started their set with three songs from the new album, including the title track “Moon Mirror,” with a soft, melodic pep on which Caws sounds more like Brian Wilson than Joey Ramone, whose Ramones he once backed in a high school auditorium in Coney Island. The song itself is haunted by “memory ghosts” and, though at times seemingly gravity-defying, also grounded in the very human need to feel connected to something, or anything.
Caws has described the band’s name as a metaphor for daydreaming, or perhaps more accurately floating in a mental space (“surfing on nothing”). Appropriately, that’s the vibe of a Nada Surf show—whether or not that floaty feeling is enhanced by the TH-Chill that permeates the air and headspace (though, I imagine, there are few places better suited for getting high than a Nada Surf show).
The surf here is at times high and low, rocking and rolling, hopeful and melancholic, anxious and, dare I say, peaceful. As the undeniably optimistic “So Much Love,” from the band’s eight album, released just two months before the pandemic struck in 2020, poignantly and perhaps predictively expresses: “The world is all flavors all the time. The dark ages had the same sunny skies.”
This band still rocks on tracks like “Hyperspace,” the pre-encore finale of this show, largely on the percussive energy of dreadlocked bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot. And still bears the scars of such teenage torment as “Mathilda,” on which Caws laments about bullies and vain attempts at making slates blank.
There’s a distinct feeling that if the Nada Surf of today could talk to the Nada Surf of yesteryear, they might say that “nada es algo” (nothing is something) or even “nada es todo” (nothing is everything). And maybe it always has been, but the band is certainly surfing on something now, and it’s not just recreational smoke.
By the time the show was coming to an end, following an encore of “Popular” and “Always Love,” and Nada Surf went nearly nada with a stripped-down, no-mics, acoustic-guitar-only singalong of “Blizzard of ’77,” it was clear too that their fans in the audience had picked up on that “something” themselves.
Robert McCune is a full-time journalist, part-time photographer, and aspiring rock journalist. Follow his journey through photography, reviews and podcasts at Every_Thing_After_Photo on Instagram.
Nada Surf, behind lead vocalist and guitarist Matthew Caws, started their set with three songs from the new album, including the title track “Moon Mirror,” with a soft, melodic pep on which Caws sounds more like Brian Wilson than Joey Ramone, whose Ramones he once backed in a high school auditorium in Coney Island. The song itself is haunted by “memory ghosts” and, though at times seemingly gravity-defying, also grounded in the very human need to feel connected to something, or anything.
Caws has described the band’s name as a metaphor for daydreaming, or perhaps more accurately floating in a mental space (“surfing on nothing”). Appropriately, that’s the vibe of a Nada Surf show—whether or not that floaty feeling is enhanced by the TH-Chill that permeates the air and headspace (though, I imagine, there are few places better suited for getting high than a Nada Surf show).
The surf here is at times high and low, rocking and rolling, hopeful and melancholic, anxious and, dare I say, peaceful. As the undeniably optimistic “So Much Love,” from the band’s eight album, released just two months before the pandemic struck in 2020, poignantly and perhaps predictively expresses: “The world is all flavors all the time. The dark ages had the same sunny skies.”
This band still rocks on tracks like “Hyperspace,” the pre-encore finale of this show, largely on the percussive energy of dreadlocked bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot. And still bears the scars of such teenage torment as “Mathilda,” on which Caws laments about bullies and vain attempts at making slates blank.
There’s a distinct feeling that if the Nada Surf of today could talk to the Nada Surf of yesteryear, they might say that “nada es algo” (nothing is something) or even “nada es todo” (nothing is everything). And maybe it always has been, but the band is certainly surfing on something now, and it’s not just recreational smoke.
By the time the show was coming to an end, following an encore of “Popular” and “Always Love,” and Nada Surf went nearly nada with a stripped-down, no-mics, acoustic-guitar-only singalong of “Blizzard of ’77,” it was clear too that their fans in the audience had picked up on that “something” themselves.
Robert McCune is a full-time journalist, part-time photographer, and aspiring rock journalist. Follow his journey through photography, reviews and podcasts at Every_Thing_After_Photo on Instagram.
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