Distracted

BY ALLIE RUSSELL

For a band playing their first-ever headline show in Chicago, Foxtide looked remarkably comfortable at the front of a sold-out room. By the time the band walked onto the stage at Schuba’s Tavern on Saturday night, the crowd already felt restless with anticipation, and Foxtide wasted no time proving why the Entropy Tour has been picking up so much momentum. 

Currently just over halfway through their run across the United States and Canada in support of their latest album, Entropy, released in April, the band delivered the kind of set that makes a small venue feel temporary. Even in the intimacy of Schuba’s, it was easy to picture them scaling up into much larger rooms in the near future. 

The night opened with a set from Hallpass, whose energy set the tone perfectly before Foxtide took over. From the start, the band carried themselves with the confidence of a group that genuinely loves being on stage together. Frontman Elijah Gibbins-Croft especially commanded the room with ease, fully committed to the moment. 

That commitment ended up defining the entire set. Foxtide sounded incredibly tight and well-practiced, but never too clean. There was a grit underneath everything, a looseness that kept the performance dynamic and exciting. Live, the band hits noticeably harder than they do on record, leaning further into the punchier side of their sound while still maintaining the melodic indie-rock charm that’s earned them comparisons to bands like The Strokes. 

Their setlist pulled heavily from Entropy while still making room for older fan favorites like “My Favorite Girl Loves Reading” and “She’s Not Yours,” both of which were met with immediate recognition from the crowd. One of the loudest moments of the night came during an unexpected cover of Hey There Delilah by Plain White T’s, which had the room belting along within seconds. It was the kind of moment that only really works when both the crowd and the band are equally willing to lean into the fun of it all, and everyone in the room delivered. During the encore, Foxtide brought out Ax and the Hatchetmen frontman Axel Ellis, earning one final eruption from the audience before closing out. 

Some shows feel important while you’re standing in them, and this one carried that energy from the very beginning. By the end of the night, it was hard to believe this was Foxtide’s first headline show in Chicago at all. The crowd already treated them like they’d been coming back for years. There’s a sweet spot that exists before a band becomes too big for rooms like this, where everything still feels a little scrappier, louder, and more personal. Saturday night captured that feeling perfectly, and Foxtide made the most of every second of it.