Our Live & Local Series is a FREE concert series featuring some of the best Cleveland and NEO talent around!
Pre-show Comedy: 7:45PM
Band Start: 8PM
Cleveland, Ohio’s WHATEVER… stormed through the ‘90s and early 2000s with a relentless barrage of punk rock anthems fueled by disillusionment, isolation, and raw fury. Now, nearly 25 years later, original members Ben Wrecked (vocals/guitar) and Matt Fish (drums) are back, louder and sharper than ever, joined by Brett Moore (guitar) and Peter Woodward (bass/vocals) to resurrect one of the Midwest’s most fierce punk acts.
Their latest album, Into Darker Days, marks the band’s first full-length release since 1997’s Youngsters (DSR 69), delivering 12 new tracks that hit with the same melodic urgency and unapologetic edge fans have always loved. Leaning into the existential unrest of today’s world, WHATEVER… channels decades of frustration into a sound that’s both familiar and freshly ferocious. This isn’t a reunion. It’s a reckoning.
“Into Darker Days” was recorded and co-produced with punk rock stalwart J. Robbins (JAWBOX, BURNING AIRLINES, etc.). The album perfectly captures the urgency of the band’s live performances. “Into Darker Days” will be released May 30, 2025, on Dr. Strange Records. Expect to see WHATEVER… playing shows locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally from small clubs to big festivals.
Alan Brostoff of Goldmine Magazine has this to say about the new record and the band: “The songs in this album are needed more now than ever. Sit down, strap in, and crank it up. If you’re upsetting the neighbors, you have done it right. Like a fine wine, WHATEVER… gets better with age and this album proves it. Let’s not wait 25 more years for the next record!”
Lives of the Saints, formed initially as a Bad Brains cover band called Fearless Vampire Killers, Cleveland, OH’s singularly unorthodox art-punk/soul band first emerged in 2003, proffering a fevered admixture of The Jesus Lizard’s splintered angularity, the headstrong bearings of dance-punk, math-rock unpredictability, and a singer who, quite rightly, worships Bobby Womack. Somehow, art damaged post-hardcore soul totally worked.
Comprised of five music scene veteran friends, whose tastes and styles only just barely overlap but who make those differences work for them, they made their name by delivering a live show with an emphasis on power and catharsis. Music scribes invented genres like “Splatter Gospel” and “Soul Noise” to describe Lives of the Saints, a band equally at home on bills with the wildly disparate likes of The Rapture, New Bomb Turks, Algiers, Pere Ubu, or Oneida.
The band has never properly “broken up,” but has always existed in sporadic bursts in between lengthy hiatuses and are now reconvening in loving memory of and tribute to their recently deceased bassist Jeff Deasy, whom they will not be replacing; instead, vocalist Lawrence Daniel Caswell will assume bass duties along with singing. Their first show back in the saddle will be at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Thursday, August 14th, 2025.
PARKING: Paid meters and parking lots are available around the museum on East 9th St., Erieside Ave., Alfred Lerner Way (in front of FirstEnergy Stadium) and at the Great Lakes Science Center. You can also use these links to park in other downtown lots, reserve your parking spot in advance or to take public transportation. All sales final, tickets cannot be exchanged or refunded after purchase unless the performance is canceled.