Show Review: The Front Bottoms and No Bro @ FIVE, Jacksonville, FL
by: Brittany Davis
A night at Riverside’s newest venue, Five, featuring No Bro and The Front Bottoms
Having a two band bill is the dream for anyone over the age of twenty five and this one was my favorite show for 2025.
We are first introduced to five female musicians who go by the name “No Bro.” This band is extremely talented, switching between multiple instruments during the show. We got to experience a member switching from bass to guitar as well as from electric keyboard to guitar. No Bro are five badass punk rock chicks from Canada, in the words of their lead singer Kathryn “we like to cuss and play punk music.” Their music is a stand out act among the rest of their peers. No Bro meshed together the sounds of classic punk rock with modern day punk. They have so many intricate parts of their songs consisting o tambourine, bongos, electric piano, easy to follow drum beats, fast finger-licking guitar riffs, and deep bass strums. Their energy was absolutely infectious. You can tell they truly enjoy playing music together: from the playful, in-sync dance moves, to smiling and laughing together. It seemed like they were so overwhelmed with the joy of the tour and the crowd participating in their calls. They even shared a song with us in French. Their song names are so eye-catching such as Where My Girls At, Eat Slay Chardonnay, Delete Delete Delete, I Don’t Feel Like It, Let’s Do Drugs, and Set Your Pussy Free which is also their 2023 album name.
They have some of the most real lyrics I’ve heard in a long time such as in Let’s Do Drugs “it’s all gone downhill since I turned twenty four.” Delete Delete Delete with phrases like “Up all night in a big fight another Reddit war, I don’t want to be on the internet, you can tell everybody their boyfriend's lame, swiping right and left, white people dancing on the internet.” There was so much chemistry with the band and the audience it was truly so much fun to watch. They left with so many new fans that night. While waiting in the merch line, it felt like everyone was talking to them and taking photos. I was extremely impressed with their set and hope they come back to Florida soon.
Moving on to the highlight of everyone’s night - The Front Bottoms - playing Back On Top in full for the album’s tenth year anniversary. Personally, it’s my favorite album with no skips and being able to see it played in full was soul changing. My friend wrapped his crutches in purple plastic flowers as well as bought Plastic Flower sprout clips to hand out at the show to other concertgoers as a nod to his favorite song from the album. Brian’s mic stand had hot dog “glizzy” lights as he played the title track Motorcycle with the glizzy guitar. The whole room shook with the roars of screaming as every song transition happened. Sometimes the crowd sang louder than the band. They were all purely shocked at that, making faces at each other and laughing. During tuning, Brian kept saying how he’s “seeing so many smiles while the energy in the air felt electric.” He was completely right. He loves Florida and it feels like a second home to him even sharing how he wants to buy a vacation home here.
The second half of the setlist was a good mix up of recent songs and older songs that had fans of all generations excited, with songs like Tighten Up, Joanie, Wolfman, Outlook, Bae, Vacation Town, and Peach making an appearance. There was something poetic about seeing someone crowd-surf to Wolfman during the lines “Say what you have to say, try not to cry, this is just not what you wanted at this point in your life.”
The bassist, Natalie, and the guitarist, Erik, had so many amazing backup vocals throughout the night as well as some solo singing that everyone enjoyed. Brian said every single time they come to Florida he has to play this next song in dedication to his first wife then began playing Lone Star which wasn’t on the setlist for the night. They even hosted a costume contest pointing out fans in the crowd including clowns, elves, a Wawa employee, the West Virgina Mothman, someone was even the state of Rhode Island as a nod to one of their songs; Mothman won first place receiving five dollars and the elves won second place winning a two dollar bill with Brian saying “y’all can split it.”
The person behind me threw a pair of socks on stage for Brian, as he’s known to perform in just socks. They read, “Someone in Florida Loves Me” which he changed into on their first encore break. The room was filled with so much love and excitement throughout the whole show you can feel it. As always, closing out the night with Twin Sized Mattress with everyone screaming at the top of their lungs every single word, meanwhile crowd-surfers are pouring in. The whole night felt like we didn’t have a care in the world. We got to turn off our lives for a few hours and reminisce on the way these songs made us feel so many years ago. This was my eighth The Front Bottoms show since 2014. I love this current lineup with Brian, Mat, Natalie, Erik, and Roshane. Truthfully, I feel like it’s the best they’ve ever sounded. Everyone played their hearts out while seeming to have the best chemistry together sonically.
