NOTE: All photos are copyright of Howard Shiau Photography 2025
It’s been six years since Warpaint headlined the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto. Returning to a full house at the Opera House, the band saw eager fans packed into the beautiful venue. Personally, I saw the quartet of Emily Kokal (guitar/vocals), Theresa Wayman (guitar/vocals), Jenny Lee Lindberg (bass/vocals), and Stella Mozgawa (drums) at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in NYC in 2017 but missed their support tours in 2018 and 2019. They did release a great new record “Radiate Like This” on May 6th of this year and we would get to hear several songs from that record live for the first time.
Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa seems to have her hand in a million projects these days, on of which would open tonight. Belief, which is her techno project with Boom Bip, also released their self-titled debut album just two weeks ago. Mozgawa, always hiding in the background, had her head bouncing the whole time with hair down over her face. It was a fun set and sure to be a hit at your local nightclub.
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It was such a joy to see Warpaint back on stage together again. Besides the wonderful mood of their music, they always look like they have so much fun playing with each other. I understand that they almost broke up after their 2016 tour but it seems like a million years ago now. It was great hearing some of our old favorite songs like “Keep It Healthy”, “Love is to Die”, and “New Song” but the best part was getting to hear live versions of new songs “Champion”, “Hips”, “Hard to Tell You” and “Stevie”. I always feel like I don’t understand a song until I can hear it live because you need to hear it directly from the band and not from a production. I’ll let the photographs tell the story of the show because that’s all you really need.
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