Nada Surf

May 2, 2025

The Grog Shop, Cleveland

Opener: The Cle Elum

by Robert McCune

We all remember the glorious mess of teenage angst—whether we were the misfits, the rebels, or even the ones who somehow skated through popularity unscathed. The ’90s were a fever dream of flannel and fury, and if you grew up nerdy like I did, Nada Surf was right there, soundtracking every existential meltdown. Their breakout anthem “Popular” from their 1996 debut High/Low wasn’t just a song—it was an ironic manifesto wrapped in biting sarcasm and distortion.

Thing is, that deep-seated teen angst never really fades. It simmers, evolves, mutates. If we’re lucky, it refines itself into something raw but beautiful. And just like those ever-relevant ’90s anthems, Nada Surf hasn’t lost its edge. On tour for their 10th studio album Moon Mirror, they delivered a set at Cleveland’s Grog Shop that was equal parts nostalgia and catharsis—a seamless blend of their discography, proving that teenage trauma might mellow with age, but the feels never die.

But first, the show opened with a band story that’s about as rock ’n’ roll as I ever recall, as indie/alternative The Cle Elum, fronted by Ian Lee on electric guitar and vocals and Sarah Sargent Pepper on drums, teed up the “be back soon” sign at the merch table and took the stage. When they’re not performing, the husband/wife duo are the tour/merch managers for Nada Surf (as well as many other top acts).

In a snazzy Sharpie-scrawled jumpsuit featuring lyrics from the band’s debut album “It’s OK If It Falls Apart,” Lee lit up the stage with energetic earworms such as “Did I Get High” and “Handclaps & Tambourines,” in addition to the immediately iconic title track, powered by his Ozzy-esque vocals over a KISS musicality punctuated with a punk mentality. And, excuse me, respectfully, but is there anything hotter than a girl on drums? As the lyric on “H&T” goes: “just put the sticks in her hands. I don’t care what the words mean. All I need is some handclaps and tambourines.”

The Cle Elum is a band that’s going places, and I, for one, am thrilled to be on the bus.

Nada Surf, behind lead vocalist and guitarist Matthew Caws, started their set with three songs from the new album, including the title track “Moon Mirror,” with a soft, melodic pep on which Caws sounds more like Brian Wilson than Joey Ramone, whose Ramones he once backed in a high school auditorium in Coney Island. The song itself is haunted by “memory ghosts” and, though at times seemingly gravity-defying, also grounded in the very human need to feel connected to something, or anything.

Caws has described the band’s name as a metaphor for daydreaming, or perhaps more accurately floating in a mental space (“surfing on nothing”). Appropriately, that’s the vibe of a Nada Surf show—whether or not that floaty feeling is enhanced by the TH-Chill that permeates the air and headspace (though, I imagine, there are few places better suited for getting high than a Nada Surf show).

Nada Surf has always been a band that thrives on contrast—high and low, rocking and rolling, hopeful yet haunted, peaceful but pulsing with anxious energy. Their music washes over you like the tide—sometimes chaotic, sometimes serene, but never predictable. Take “So Much Love,” the radiant gem from their eighth album, released just two months before the world spiraled into pandemic-induced darkness. It’s a neon-lit promise that even in the bleakest times, the sun still burns bright.

But don’t let all that optimism fool you—this band can still hit like a freight train. “Hyperspace,” their pre-encore gut punch, rode the percussive force of dreadlocked bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot, blasting through the venue like controlled chaos. Then there’s “Mathilda,” the raw nerve of the setlist, with Matthew Caws revisiting ghosts of childhood torment, echoing the futile attempts to wipe the slate clean.

It’s as if the Nada Surf of today is whispering in the ear of its younger self, offering up some hard-earned wisdom: Maybe “nada es algo” (nothing is something), or even “nada es todo” (nothing is everything). Whatever the truth is, they’re riding the wave now—and it’s more than nostalgia, more than reverie. This is reinvention, and not just the kind sparked by recreational smoke.

Then came the finale—a crescendo of old and new, an encore of “Popular” and “Always Love” leading to the ultimate drop-the-mic moment: “Blizzard of ’77,” stripped to its core, no mics, just an acoustic guitar and the collective voices of the crowd. And in that bare-bones, nothing-but-heart delivery, the audience caught onto something bigger. Nada Surf wasn’t just playing a show—they were passing on something real. Something worth holding onto.

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