Neko Case
with Destroyer, Nora O’Connor
Grand Junction, Colorado • March 13, 2026
by Rose Petralia
Here we are, still a week to go before spring is official but champing at the bit for this warm day and a sweet walk through downtown Grand Junction. The oldest theater around was named for the apple trees plentiful here in the ‘20s — the 1920s, natch — both now faded, the Grand Valley’s apples given way to peaches and cherries, the old trees showing their vintage in neighbors’ backyards. The Avalon hosts old movies now, fancy private parties, and the occasional bright community theater production, every now and then entertaining a touring artist surprised that this town exists between SLC and Red Rocks.
And hot damn, we have some artists here tonight.
• •
Solo on this tour, Dan Bejar stands on a Persian rug with his pretty red guitar amid the mic stands, monitors, and instruments of the act he’s warming us up for, a musician in a giant living room of sorts, running through his favorite tunes beneath distinctive floofy keratin. Most of the friends joining me here tonight in better seats bought tickets to this show to see Destroyer, Bejar’s main gig since the ‘90s and precursor to the New Pornographers, who claim almost everyone on stage tonight.
Destroyer plays one song each from Have We Met (2020), Thief (2000), Poison Season (2015), ken (2017), Kaputt (2011), Trouble in Dreams (2008), and Your Blues (2004), and two from Destroyer’s Rubies (2006), but since he’s solo, none from last year’s Dan’s Boogie, a full-band affair heavy on piano.
Dan Bejar’s biggest fans hold their breath for 45 minutes. That one guy stage left belts out a “Yeeeaaah!” each time Dan says “fuck” or “fucking.”
Near the end of his set, Bejar thanks Neko Case for the “wild ride to America.” He says, “I saw things I’ve never seen before.” I cringe at “America.” Destroyer leaves the living room, his pretty red guitar standing watch near the hole where the sofa would be.
• •
YOU ARE SO POWERFUL
After a tasteful interlude in which to absorb all the Destroyer Dan got on us, I hear it: Neko Case wants everyone to put their phones away. I can’t wait for the row ahead of me to get dark.
On stage, the guitar tech goes nuts and stays that way all night, bringing the instruments everyone needs when they need them and taking them away when they don’t. Bejar’s red guitar lies in wait.
Neko Case and the band walk onstage, settling onto a carpet like they’ve done it a million times before — and they have done it at least 30 times this year, Colorado being their last set of dates on this tour. The audience warms up.
This tour is for Neon Grey Midnight Green, yet the band plays “Bracing for Sunday” from The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You (2013) and “People Got a Lotta Nerve” from Middle Cyclone (2009) before giving us “Louise,” the sweetest love song — featuring hornets, because this is a Neko Case song, after all — from the new record, though it’s “not new, new, since the album came out in October,” Case tells us.
The stage-left guy adds “that’s what I’m talking about“ to his repertoire, but it sounds like “talkin’ ‘bout” up here near the ceiling, and Case seems surprised people know her in this strange little town that defies evolution. “Come back here next tour,” someone invites.
“After this we’re never not coming to Grand Junction” is Neko Case’s reply.
We hear “Deep Red Bells” from Blacklisted (2002), and the audience sings along to “This Tornado Loves You” from Middle Cyclone and politely listens to “Little Gears,” my favorite so far from Neon Grey Midnight Green, a new song about another little creature. Case is the queen of minute observation, immortalizing the intense little life of a being so generally unnoticed, derived from an internalized one-hour glance.
“I watched a spider build her web / It’s something I’d never done before / I assumed it was a three-day event / As intricate as they are / As fragile as they are”
“But she finished it in less than an hour / I felt cheated by how easy it was / No mistakes, no missteps / Born yesterday with the gears of an atomic clock”
There’s so much here for the hardcore Neko Case fans tonight, and “Maybe Sparrow” (Fox Confessor Brings the Flood), “Magpie to the Morning,” and “I’m an Animal” (Middle Cyclone) descend like gifts, Nora O’Connor’s harmonies brilliant mirrors of Case’s vocal and guitar. “I’m an Animal” (Middle Cyclone) follows, then “Destination,” what feels like an autobiography from Neon Grey Midnight Green.
“Hello, stranger / You remind me of someone”
We hear “Super Moon,” the one song from CASE/LANG/VEIRS (2016) tonight, “Lady Pilot” (Blacklisted) and “Oh, Shadowless” (Wild Creatures, 2022), then from the new album, “Neon Grey Midnight Green,” “Tomboy Gold,” and “Wreck,” before the set ends with “Star Witness” from Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, which I’m starting to believe is Case’s favorite of her eight solo albums — at least to play live.
The band takes a small break and the guitar tech gets to work…
We are by now psyched for the encore, “I Wish I Was the Moon” (Blacklisted) followed by “Myriad Harbour,” Destroyer finally picking up the red guitar for this New Pornographers’ song (Challengers, 2007). At some point in the four-song encore, I’m not sure because my phone was in my pocket so this is my memory we’re relying on here, Case introduces the band: Kyle Crane (drums), Adam Schatz (saxophone, keyboards, etc.), Andrew McKeag (bass), Paul Rigby (guitars), and Nora O’Connor — holy god, how are we so lucky to have two mother lovin’ divinities on this one old stage here, tonight — what an absolute dream show.
Neko Case tells us that the world is divided, but we’re not tonight, we’re a community. “You are so powerful,” she tells us, a reinforcement of tonight’s backdrop of industrialized farmland graffiti. The band leaves us with “Hold On, Hold On” and “At Last” from the aforementioned favorite, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, and we are left to wander out into the soft, warm night, wild creatures spinning our tiny webs. ◼
Neko Case • Destroyer • Nora O’Connor
