When Wednesday began their Milwaukee concert March 27, the first thing frontwoman Karly Hartzman did was scream.
That was probably apt enough foreshadowing for what was to come. But near the end of the North Carolina rock (and occasionally country) band’s 82-minute set, Hartzman tipped her hand anyway: there would be no encore, because she was going to push her voice to its limit screaming through the last two songs.
She wasn’t kidding.
The night’s penultimate performance of “Bull Believer” was a shoegaze-soaked stunner that ebbed and flowed from gentle ruminations to bristling tension for over eight minutes, until Hartzman unleashed primal vocal fury at the end. Incredibly, there was more where that came from with the show’s finale, the 90-second stinger “Wasp,” with Hartzman’s cries reaching maximum volume, and intensity, as she bitterly and brutally screamed, “God’s plan unfolds/so slow/so slow/so slow.”
“Slow” hasn’t been the plan for Wednesday lately.
Releasing six full-length albums across eight years, Wednesday reached new critical heights with one of 2023’s best-reviewed albums, “Rat Saw God” (featuring “Bull Believer”), which placed seventh on music critic year-end lists aggregator Album of the Year. Two years later Wednesday defied the odds with “Bleeds” (featuring “Wasp”) which received even greater reviews – and ended up number three on the Album of the Year list in 2025.
All that praise has led to bigger stages for Wednesday – including some stadium and arena gigs this summer opening for Tyler Childers, including at Wrigley Field in Chicago – plus this Milwaukee tour stop at a sold-out Turner Hall Ballroom for nearly 1,000 fans.
And what Hartzman’s go-for-broke screams in Milwaukee showed was that Wednesday has been able to meet the moment with a thrilling live show that matches the ecstatic accolades for their latest albums – while crucially staying true to themselves.
Hartzman’s screams were theatrical showstoppers, but also raw and daring, similar to Jake “Spyder” Pugh’s lead guitar work.
Pugh replaced MJ Lenderman during Wednesday’s tours last year, while Lenderman supports his own successful solo career (including a co-headlining show in Milwaukee with Waxahatchee at the Riverside Theater April 28). But Pugh’s already bringing his own personality to the stage, while honoring the Wednesday ethos. There was grit and grime to his feedback-heavy guitar wails, but there was sweep and grandeur too, more apparent on stage than on record. Grunge is a key influence, but not just any grunge band. The guiding light appeared to be Kurt Cobain’s world-dominating hooks with Nirvana.
Another relatively new replacement, Ethan Baechtold (in the band since 2023), offered the brooding low end on bass to round Wednesday’s sound, while Alan Miller delivered heavy fills and heart-racing builds on drums. Combined with pedal steel and lap steel player Xandy Chelmis – who conjured both traditional twang for deceptively sweet country tune “Elderberry Wine” and psychedelic-flirting fuzz for a grungy take of Gary Stewart’s ”She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinking Doubles)” – the five members of Wednesday, in wowing a packed Turner Hall, proved they’ve got what it takes to crush those stadium gigs.
But great as Wednesday was on stage in Milwaukee, the strength of their songwriting – especially Hartzman’s lyrics – is the biggest driver for expanding ticket sales.
Milwaukee fans were offered a killer line before Hartzman even reached double-digit word counts on stage, for show opener “Reality TV Argument Bleeds”: “If you need me, I’ll call you.” Aside from being a sublime and succinct demonstration of her wit, those lyrics also imply one of Hartzman’s main modes as a writer, as an observer just outside the emotional fray.
Don’t mistake that for detachment: there’s often such direct vividness to Hartzman’s words, frequently informed by personal experiences, they’re full of feeling. Across the setlist in Milwaukee, that could be gleamed from the bleakly funny images in “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)” (“Weeds grew into the springs of the trampoline/You saw a pitbull puppy pissin’ off a balcony”), or from “Gary’s II,” a wild (and apparently true) tale about how Hartzman’s former landlord violently lost his teeth, penned with such dynamic, darkly comic detail, you can practically taste the blood.
And when Hartzman does change her perspective as a writer, to look within, it gets your heart racing. And live, that introspection, expressed through visceral screams, was even more powerful than on the exceptional albums.
“Bitter Everyday” has those signature, novelistic observations (“You’re chopping ketamine with a motel room key”), but live in Milwaukee, Hartzman brought heightened passion screaming the line, “Abundant things in life keep getting fewer every day.” And screamed vocals for “Fate Is…,” supplemented by intense instrumentation from Pugh and Miller, bordered on the terrifying, as Hartzman yelled, “Pass the billboard on the street and wonder if hell will swallow me up.”
“Fate is drawing back its leg to kick me,” Hartzman concedes on the song. But between their superb music and equally engrossing live show, Wednesday’s fate is looking far more promising.
Five takeaways from Wednesday’s Milwaukee concert
Wednesday’s Turner Hall Ballroom setlist
Contact Piet Levy at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wednesday meets big breakthrough moment with thrilling Milwaukee show
Reporting by Piet Levy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
