Fastball are from Austin, Texas. Tonight they playing at Park West, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. Spacehog were expected to open, but they had to cancel at the last minute.

Tony Scalzo, the bassist and vocalist, says to the crowd that they may recognize the next one. It was recently featured in a Ted Lasso episode! They go on to play “Out of My Head” from their 1998 album, All The Pain Money Can Buy. “Don’t matter what I say, only what I do / I never mean to do bad things to you / So quiet, but I finally woke up / If you’re sad, then it’s time you spoke up, too”. It’s such a great song with an excellent guitar solo halfway through by Miles Zuniga! Also, Joey Shuffield is solid on drums all night.  

They follow this with “The Way” from the same album. It is their most popular song on Spotify with over 151 million streams. “It’s always summer, they’ll never get cold / They’ll never hungry, they’ll never get old and gray / You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere / They won’t make it home but they really don’t care / They wanted the highway, they’re happier there today”. The lyrics are based on a true story about an elderly couple that left their home in Texas and went missing. Scalzo imagined a happy ending for them and wrote this before they were discovered dead in a ditch 400 miles away. 

See a recent setlist here. 

Cost of a ticket: $48

PlaylistHQ Economic Rating: Discounted +

Rating Scale: Exceptional > Good Value > Discounted > Go for Free > Don’t Bother

Quinn Delaney