Nat & Alex Wolff Album Release Show Review
Nat and Alex Wolff, via Instagram.
Brothers Nat and Alex Wolff are actors and musicians who first got their start as teens in the 2000s Nickelodeon show The Naked Brothers Band. Over the years, they’ve released their own music and starred in various movies (most notably Nat in Paper Towns and Alex in Hereditary). Opening for Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft tour in 2024 has brought them more fans, several of whom showed up at the Echoplex in LA to sell out the release show for their new self-titled album.
The night opened with BEL, a local up-and-coming singer-songwriter whose indie sound was the perfect way to start. She performed several songs from her own recent album Holy Grail, my favorite of which was “Party Trick.”
Nat and Alex then took the stage and launched right into their album opener and single “Tough.” The album has a good mix of softer songs and more energetic ones, with some jazz and punk influences throughout. As an album release show, I was expecting them to play the entire new album in order, and while they did play every song from it, they also interspersed several of their older songs. Crowd favorites were the jazzy “Rollin’ Around” (from their 2016 album Public Places) and “All Over You” (from 2022’s Table for Two).
Another highlight was all the special guests Nat and Alex invited to perform different songs with them, including Alex’s girlfriend Rosalind (whom the song “Rosalind” is about), Lauren Juzang, who sang “I Can’t Hurt You Anymore” with Nat, and the backup vocalists Ava and Jane Horner, whom they met on tour with Billie Eilish. During the encore, they brought out their father, Michael Wolff, on piano as Nat sang “All My Plans,” a song about the elder Wolff’s battle with cancer.
However, the most surprising guest appearance was from the one and only Jack Black, whom they brought out during their song “Jack.” The crowd went crazy as Black danced around the stage whenever the lyrics called out “Come back, Jack.” It was certainly unexpected, and I haven’t heard a crowd scream so loud in a long time.
The show also hit a few nostalgic beats, as the Wolff brothers revived “Rosalina” and “Crazy Car,” two songs from their Nickelodeon days. What impressed me throughout the show was how genuinely talented they are as musicians. They switched around their instruments and parts with ease, and their vocals were consistently strong, sounding just like their recorded versions. While they may have gotten their start as teen TV stars, they’ve shown they can hold their own as adult musicians.
“Glue” concluded the set, much to my delight since I was fearing I might not get to hear it. Even though I didn’t have the same level of nostalgia as some in the audience (this was my first time actually hearing “Crazy Car,” for instance), I enjoyed every bit of the show, especially as they leaned into their jazz sound or their louder punk moments, such as Nat’s ending on “Midnight Song.” With this eponymous album, it seems they’re entering a new era, coming fully into their own selves, and I anticipate they’ll see much continued success in the singer-songwriter space, especially because of their unique camaraderie as brothers.
