LIVE: MARVELOUS 3 – Nashville, TN, USA – September 26, 2025

Venue: Brooklyn Bowl Nashville

City: Nashville, TN

Dates: September 26, 2025

Review and Photographs by: Todd “Toddstar” Jolicoeur (www.toddstarphotography.com)

Every once in a while, I get a crazy idea jammed into my brain.  The latest was grabbing a plane ticket and heading to Nashville to catch the first Marvelous 3 show of their 4-city tour.  After getting a couple things lined up, I found myself boarding a plane in Charlotte, NC and headed to Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl for a night of live rock and roll I gave up hope of ever witnessing myself.  Marvelous 3 – Butch Walker, Jayce Fincer, Sluggo, and newest addition Holden – were set to deliver music spanning 4 releases, covers, and a couple of decades of rock n roll memories.  Venturing into the venue, you could feel anticipation immediately.  The vibe of the night was set early and only grew from there.  Music blasting through the venue’s sound system was properly lubing everybody’s internal rock and roll motor.  Local openers Winona Fighter added to the evening’s agenda with an energized set that included tracks from their latest deluxe release My Apologies To The Chef.  With nods to their own influences as well as many mentions of the show we were going to get after their time on stage helped keep the crowd pumped up and rocking, from front to back, even in the far reaches of the balcony.  The night and music progressed and before anyone in the venue realized, the moment we were all waiting for was looming.

Armed with their instruments and a catalog of amazing music, the band took their places on stage, and we were off and running on an amazing musical journey together.  Digging back to their 2000 release ReadySexGo for the first time of the evening, the guys ripped the evening wide open with “Little Head,” and you couldn’t find a single head in the joint not rocking out.  We would have to wait until later in the set to hear more songs from this disc, but there was so much more material to hear that no one minded.  Reaching into a more recent past, the guys cranked two rockers from 2023’s IV – the rocking “My Old School Metal Heart” and the super contagious “Kill a Motherfucker That Breaks Your Heart” demonstrating the strength of their catalog regardless of the years between releases.  Frontman, singer, and guitarist Butch Walker performed like his life depended on it and left everything he had on the stage, in the air, and even on the general admission floor area of the venue.  The Marvelous 3’s 1998 Hey! Album provided the most material for the evening, beginning with “Write It on Your Hand” and there was no looking back.  In all, nine songs from that release peppered the setlist including “Over Your Head,” one of my personal favorites of the evening “#27” and the rousing “You’re So Yesterday.”  Flanking on stage left, Jayce Fincher played bass like a man on a mission and sang all those familiar background vocals with pride, smiles, and energy.  More tracks from the first couple releases hit the set and it was obvious the crowd was totally into the set as “Grant Park” and “You’re So Yesterday” cranked through the speakers and monitors and the songs were as powerful tonight as they were the first time you heard them.  The storyteller components of the set were fun as well, not only giving us more insight and backstory into some of the material but allowing us all to collectively catch our breath and brace for whatever was coming next.  Swirling new with the old sonically as well as on stage, there was music from earlier releases as well as more material from the 2023 disc when “Jackie and Tina” made an appearance in the set. 

Keeping with the old meets new thought, guitarist and vocalist, as well as son of Jayce, Holden Fincher held down stage right from behind a mic and many an impressive riff and lick throughout the course of the evening.  When you thought it couldn’t get much better, “Vampires in Love” met up with the band’s most recent effort – a cover of “I Melt With You” – before falling back to the heavily utilized Hey! Album when “Mrs. Jackson” made an appearance.  Coming full circle, Butch introduced the oldest track in the set “Make Up” from the often overlooked Math & Other Problems keeping everybody up, singing, and moving.  Sooner a medley of songs the guys listened to on their van rides made an appearance.  During the medley, the evenings musical anchor drummer Mitch ‘Sluggo’ McLee abandoned his set and gave us all a listen to his vocal chops as well.  My favorite one-two punch of the evening closed out the set when “Sugarbuzz” and “Radio Tokyo” came together and created some of the loudest co-vocals of the evening from the SOLD-OUT venue.  After the awkward encore routine of leaving the stage, the band’s breakout hit “Freak of the Week” opened the final moments of the evening before “Cigarette Lighter Love Song” became the last original of the evening.  Wanting to bond and be one with the Marvelous 3 family that showed up and packed Brooklyn Bowl tonight, Butch ventured out into the crowd and we all sang many choruses of “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me” together before sending us all into the Nashville night with smiles on our faces, songs on our lips, and a million moments running through our minds.  Four flights, three hours sleep in a hotel, and complete exhaustion the next day… and I would do it all over again for one more Marvelous 3 show at some point.

SETLIST: Little Head – My Old School Metal Heart – Write It on Your Hand – Kill a Motherfucker That Breaks Your Heart – Over Your Head – #27 – Grant Park – You’re So Yesterday – Until You See – Jackie and Tina – Every Monday – Vampires in Love – I Melt With You – Mrs. Jackson – Make Up – If We’re On Fire (Let It Burn) – Longview / Buddy Holly / Alright / In The Meantime / Celebrity Skin / Song #2 – Sugarbuzz – Radio Tokyo – Freak of the Week – Cigarette Lighter Love Song – (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me

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Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries