Innings Festival 2026: Recaps of the biggest sets

Innings Festival, the annual baseball and music extravaganza that takes over Tempe Beach Park each February, is one of the biggest music festivals of the year.

Over three days, fans saw the likes of Sublime, Twenty One Pilots, Mumford & Sons, Blink-182 and many more.

Here’s what we saw at Innings Festival 2026.

Sunday, Feb. 22

Blink-182, 9 p.m., Home Plate Stage

Blink-182 will never get their full due for providing the soundtrack of American kids’ rites of passage. You just got a crush? Dude, tee up “All the Small Things.” Your crush going through hard times? The emo-maxxing “voice inside my yeddd” hook of “I Miss You” will get you through. Parents getting divorced? Borrow the car and blast “Stay Together for the Kids” with your friends till you’re hoarse and out of gas.

The three members of the band — Mark Hoppus on bass, Tom DeLonge on guitar Travis Barker on the kit — may have been born in the mid-’70s but they somehow haven’t aged a day since they turned 15. On Sunday night, as they closed Innings Festival, they left the thousands of largely Gen X and millennial fans on an authentic high. This, apparently, is what it looks like to get older without actually aging: Barker wearing a ripped-up Misfits T-shirt while absolutely assaulting the kit while Mark and Tom harmonize and then crack wise between songs.

They busted on Arizona for requiring IDs to access online porn. They made at least two separate handjob jokes. They claimed to have cut short their rehearsal to avoid Phoenix traffic. Hoppus gave a late round of thanks to other bands they shared the stage with, saving his greatest praise for the best band of all time: Fugazi.

You might be forgiven for forgetting how many monster hits these guys cranked out over the years, in part because they had so many imitators. Blink’s propulsive, radio-ready punk borrows the joy of ska and the angst of emo, bridging at least three decades of youth rock. Their sound was ahead of its time in the late ’90s, which no doubt makes it easier for the band members to ease into middle age. They finished with a four-song salvo that Hoppus explained they were going to play straight through, rather than play two, then pretend to leave, then play two more. You could almost hear the dads in the crowd swoon. They launched into “What’s My Age Again,” which itself has aged in some hilarious ways — “what the hell is call ID?” is a question whose time came, went and returned. Hoppus and DeLonge sing that nobody likes you when you’re 23 and you still act like you’re in freshman year. Yet somehow when they’re 50-something and still acting like sophomores — ending the set with a humongous, flaming middle finger sculpture sending everyone home by bedtime — they can do no wrong. Sam Eifling

Public Enemy, 7:55 p.m., Right Field Stage

I hate to be the bearer of bad news to MAGA, but you have lost the bellwether constituency that is Flavor Flav. He and Chuck D at turns paused during their frenetic, bombastic, pissed-off, uplifting 12-song set to remind the crowd that back in the day, Public Enemy toured in Arizona with U2 and fought to see Martin Luther King’s birthday a state holiday, at a time when Arizona was the only state in the country not to recognize it. Now, Flavor Flav told the audience, Trump removed a bust of MLK from the Oval Office. “Fuck Donald Trump,” he told the crowd, who by show of hands and voices tended to agree. “To me, that was a real disrespect.” 

As night fell Sunday, we also got a “rest in power, Jesse Jackson,” a “Tempe, Arizona, I swear I fuckin’ love y’all” and a full-throated “Fuck ICE. Fuck them motherfuckers.” No one turns a feel-bad historical moment into a party like Public Enemy. Chuck and Flav might be well into their 60s at this point, but they’ve always been prophetic. They dropped “Don’t Believe the Hype” in 1988, and it still rings true in 2026. If you can’t get your hands in the air for “911 is a Joke” swerving right into “Terrordome,” well, friend, I’m not sure you’re going to make it. 

On its surface, the set had a militant feel. Chuck wore camo cargo shorts and a black T, and alongside the two DJs and drummer were four stern characters in fatigues. But the final notes of the show belonged to Flav, in his sparkling white suit and pink sparkly clock necklace.

“No matter what race we come from, no matter what color we are, no matter what language we speak, no matter what religion that we study — at the end of the day, we are all God’s children,” Flav said once everyone else had left the stage. “We are all sisters and brothers and we must share this planet equally.”

He had everyone in the crowd throw up a peace sign. He told us God gives us the ability to take care of ourselves and others. He wished everyone well on achieving our goals. Eventually they cut his mic, just as Flav was asking to do one more song. Sam Eifling

Sublime, 6:35 p.m., Home Plate Stage

Sublime has never been the bastion of tight, polished performances, and that’s partially why they remained such an endearing legacy in the grunge/punk/ska canon. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Bradley Nowell, bassist Eric Wilson and drummer Bud Gaugh cut their teeth in the Long Beach house party scene, and legends of chaotic, charming sets from the band are part-and-parcel with their legacy. 

New frontman Jakob Nowell, son of Bradley, was quick to acknowledge his legacy on Sunday night, telling the crowd that today was his late father’s birthday, and that he saw him in all of the fans there. It was a touching moment, and you can tell that the son-turned-torch-bearer of one of the most beloved ‘90s bands has his heart in the right place, but unfortunately the band fell short of expectations. Sunday’s set was unfocused and, even by Sublime standards, sloppy. 

Part of this may be technical: Jakob has a much wider vocal range than his father, so sometimes he opts to whisper-sing his lines and jump to another octave and pitch, something his father could only do to limited effect. I imagine trying to keep the vocal mic in check for someone who is constantly going from one side of the dial to the other is going to be a challenge, but it made for an inconsistent vocal delivery, especially on the more chaotic songs (set opener “April 29th, 1992” and “Date Rape,” for instance). 

The band also felt … off. Jakob has admitted frequently that he is nowhere in the league of his dad when it comes to covering the guitar duties, and he frequently passed the more precise rhythm guitar parts off to their tech and unofficial fifth member Zane Vandevort, and, in a surprise appearance, the original “unofficial fourth member of Sublime,” Michael “Miguel” Happoldt, who came out to rip on “Same in the End.” But Sublime guitar is about being sloppy, loose and yet technically oddly surprising and intricate. Jakob looked and sounded tight and ahead of the beat, a nervous tic that sabotaged the backbeat of the band. Coupled with the manic vocal delivery, it made for a chaotic tension in what should have been a chill vibe.

That’s not to say there were not bright moments. The more crooning songs in the catalog (“Boss DJ,” for instance, which Jakob played solo, and “Bad Fish,” which he dedicated to his dad, sounded eerily spot on and still tenderly original in their delivery) sit well in his own register, and the new track, while lyrically vapid (“I just want to make love to a whore” and “If I was the motherfuckin’ President/I’d hire 20 strippers for my cabinet”, which, while canonically Sublime in content, don’t hold up well in 2026) sonically live in the same space as the final self-titled Sublime record. 

That said, Jakob is trying to give other bands the same shine as he is getting, and he took several moments to shout out other artists. The best moment of the evening occurred when he brought out local Tempe singer/songwriter Gabo Fayuca of the band Fayuca to duet with the band on “Caress Me Down.”

“My band Jakobs Castle has played a ton of shows with his band. I slept on his couch so many times. Go listen to Fayuca, and go support your local bands – you’ll never know whose couch you’ll need to crash on!” Nowell insisted. 

Predictably, Sublime closed their set with “Santeria,” and as the first notes of their biggest hit carried out to the crowd, the response was immediate, with phones out and a massive sing-along from the thousands of fans. Jakob dedicated the song to his father, and his father before him and to the fans that have supported this band for so long. It was a perfectly fine rendition, if still hindered by those odd vocal inflections. In true Sublime tradition, it was complete with a dog on stage, but a different sort of breed than his father’s dalmatian band mascot Lou Dog. This was Melvin, a clumsy, muscular Rottweiler, who loses his ball on stage occasionally, but whom the crowd adored nonetheless. There’s a metaphor there somewhere, but it’s also very hard to teach an old band – or new dog – new tricks. Zach Oden

Big Boi, 5:30 p.m., Right Field Stage

“Do we got any true ATLiens in the house?” Big Boi, a.k.a. Sir Lucious Left Foot, a.k.a. General Patton, a.k.a. Antwan Andre’ Patton asked. 

In return, for an hour, AZ got a little bit ATL, with preeminent Atlanta hip-hop ambassador (and one-half of America’s greatest hip-hop group, Outkast) Big Boi commanded the stage, delivering verse-heavy vignettes from his 30-year career. Charming as hell and in the pocket as ever, and bringing Patrick Leroy “Sleepy” Brown to hit the choruses, the duo brought enough swagger to have the audience eating out of the palms of their hands. 

Alongside longtime Outkast DJ Cutmaster Swift, who, as we were told, plays “real motherfucking turntables and real motherfucking records,” they moved quickly through a greatest hits collection mostly made up of Outkast songs, starting with “ATliens,” with Big Boi dropping iconic lines about being “cooler than a polar bear’s toenails,” which, here, is still the case. While in his early 50s, he moved with swagger and kept up a commanding pace, not dropping a syllable or losing a breath in his rapid-fire, staccato delivery, a feat many rappers half his age would struggle with. 

The set was loaded with crowd-favorite moments, such as the second song, “Rosa Parks”; the iconic “Wooo-oooh-oooh-ooh, I am for real” chorus gave even casual fans an entry point and an immediate sing-along moment, during which Big Boi and Sleepy dabbed themselves up and crossed the stage, smiling, very much enjoying the appreciation. 

At one point, Sleepy pointed to the crowd and noted that there were a lot of beautiful ladies in the crowd, and that he was “going to get real sexy” for a moment, launching into the chorus of “I Can’t Wait”, taking the lead from Big Boi and letting the crowd sit with a slow jam moment before returning to more up-tempo cuts like “Player’s Ball” and “Elevators (Me & You),” which gave deep cut fans some attention. 

It was only on Andre-heavy hits like “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)” and “Ms. Jackson” where the absence was felt, and hearing these songs cutting off before (or after) Andre’s verses made his absence even more noticeable. Big Boi, too, seemed to feel the elephant in the room, and the setlist was quick to touch on these moments while going on to “Speakerboxx”-era mainstays like “I Love the Way You Move,” which had the crowd wanting the 808 when they heard the B-A-S-S bass from the jump. 

In the end, Big Boi himself seemed to acknowledge the sum of his legacy’s parts and the Andre-sized gap on stage. For the final song, “Int’l Player’s Anthem (I Choose You),” he asked for help singing along because, “he’s not here,” pointing to the music video projection of Andre 3000 behind him. The crowd was happy to oblige, and the trio ended by teaching the crowd the universal motto of Atlanta hospitality by having them chant “ATL Hoe!” before leaving the stage, a perfect Atlanta salute from the General himself. Zach Oden

Saturday, Feb. 21

Twenty One Pilots, 9 p.m., Home Plate Stage

At a music festival, there are different levels of fandom represented for every act. At Twenty One Pilots’ Saturday night headlining set, there were folks who were ambivalent about the duo composed of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun but were committed to staying till the end; the ones who liked what they’d heard of the band from radio and TikTok exposure; and big fans who wore band T-shirts and stood in place for hours to get a good spot at the Home Plate Stage. And then, there were the superfans who showed up hours before Tempe Beach Park opened the gates so they could run — yes, run — to snag a space at the rail. And there weren’t just a couple of them.

After last night, I see what the hype is about. A song on the radio can’t capture the energy or power of a live set, and what Twenty One Pilots gave last night’s audience went beyond my 100th time listening to hits like “Heathens” and “Ride.”

Not content to stay on stage, Joseph was only minutes into the set when he leaped onto a board held aloft by fans and swung his microphone around wildly during “The Contract.” It set the tone for a thrillingly unpredictable set that included Dun solemnly lighting a torch onstage, Olympics-style, and later, climbing a narrow tower next to the stage to play drums dozens of feet in the air. Later, Joseph ran over to the cabanas and sang part of “Ride” standing on the railing.

With some artists, the unpredictable antics might have been intended as a distraction from a weak set. Not so with Twenty One Pilots, who delivered a solid mix of fan favorites, radio bangers and cool covers (including “Stolen Dance” by Milky Chance and The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.”)

Dun is a monster on drums, and Joseph impressed as a multi-instrumentalist. A friend texted me: “First time I think I’ve seen a frontman sit down and play piano with a bass guitar strapped on his back.”

Last night was also the first time Twenty One Pilots played “Drag Path” live. For the casual fan or the TikTok illiterate, this is a song the band released in September that has become the background sound for more than 100,000 sad TikToks about loss, memory, nostalgia and other bittersweet emotions. It was a special treat to get the first in-person performance. Jennifer Goldberg

Lord Huron, 7:55 p.m., Right Field Stage

For a tight hour, just before the headliners, Twenty One Pilots, drew the audience back to the main stage, Ben Schneider and his band, Lord Huron, created a pocket dimension on the outer edge of Tempe Beach Park. Patient, methodical, at turns eerie, the 12-song set kicked off with Schneider singing into the receiver of an old-school payphone on “Who Laughs Last,” opposite a recording of Kristen Stewart. With his dark hair slicked back above his salty beard, dressed in a striped suit and bolo tie, backed by five players — as well as a wall of glowing vintage TVs and an oversized jukebox — Schneider appeared as a sort of wayward drifter, down on his luck in the debris of Americana, singing hopefully about rivers and mountains and the yearning inherent in wandering.

After the jangly, cinematic “Bag of Bones,” Schneider took a moment to thank the audience for coming out. The band was, he said, glad to be in “strange and unfamiliar territory: Tempe.” Even as he deadpanned his banter, he delivered phrases with an invisible wink. “It’s a beautiful night,” he said. “Who could ask for anything more.”

The top of their finale, “Not Dead Yet,” signaled an exodus as fans began the long and dusty commute to see the headliners at the other end of the park. Transcribe the lyrics of that song and you’ll swear Schneider is about to file for divorce: “You got holes in your clothes / and booze on your breath / You look like hell / and you smell like death.” But the woodsy harmonies and chipper chord progressions communicate a friendlier moment. This grim scene is only the midpoint of whatever journey we’re on. We’re not dead yet. So what’s one more before we hit the road? Sam Eifling

Cage the Elephant, 6:35 p.m., Home Plate Stage

I wouldn’t count myself a Cage the Elephant fan per se, even if Spotify mixes have made me an occasional Cage the Elephant enjoyer. Their 18-song, 75-minute set on the main stage Saturday night failed to convert me to the side of the true faithful.

Frontman Matt Schultz burst onto the stage in full glam-rock mode — sheer shirt, inscrutable shades, dancing behind six spumes of vertical flame at the front of the stage — and opened with “Broken Boy.” Its staccato almost-interesting lyrics (“I was born on the wrong side of the train tracks”) pushed forward by a bulldozer of heavy bass and guitar set a tone that soon became a theme. Cage the Elephant offers a perfectly listenable brand of parents-friendly rock, punk as if written to soundtrack browsing at Whole Foods, and a stage this big works against them. They don’t have a great many hooks and melodies hook-y or melodic enough to support the sheer wall of sound they had to crank out. And Schultz’s lyrics, dwelling as they so often do on such amorphous images as “truth” or “understanding” or “my mind” or “something,” don’t offer much to grip onto without melody to carry them.

A smaller venue, one that would allow them to take a lighter touch, would serve them better. Most of their songs simply aren’t interesting enough to withstand being cranked up to 10 across the board. Occasionally, though, one of their real jewels burst through. The softer, dynamic “Trouble” arrived as a welcome cool breeze, albeit 10 songs deep in the set. They followed that with the jangly, roguish “No Sleep for the Wicked,” which got the audience wiggling. And their decision to leave “Come a Little Closer” for their finale ensured Cage the Elephant enjoyers walked away singing that song’s truly catchy hook — “come a little closer, then you’ll see / come on, come on, come on” — without worrying about the words. Sam Eifling

Dashboard Confessional, 5:30 p.m., Right Field Stage

The woman in the front row wore a Dashboard Confessional trucker hat and told the people behind her that she was going to ugly cry during the set. “Be forewarned,” she declared. 

Soon after, frontman Chris Carrabba and company took the stage, and, as predicted, there were some emotional emo fans taking a moment. Carrabba, who still looks and moves as though he were going through his first serious breakups, led the band through a triumphant hour-run of soul-bearing fan favorites, opening with the first lines of “The Best Deceptions” from 2001’s “The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most.” The king of confessional lyrics joked that tonight was going to be a bit of a sing-along and reminded the crowd that their first album just turned 25 years old. 

That number didn’t seem to stop Carrabba, who, along with guitarist Armon Jay and multi-instrumentalist Kenny Bridges, often ran a three-guitar attack that turned several of their songs, such as “Southbound and Sinking”, into full-on punk pop affairs, driven in uptempo barrages by new drummer Trevor Hogan, who made the heartworn anthems even more dynamic by pushing them to a breakneck pace.

Carrabba was playful and gracious with the crowd during the final numbers, explaining that it was their first show of the year. He also remarked that this was the second time in five years that Innings has been the first show of the year for them, and that it’s something of a good luck charm for him at this point. Carrabba then launched into a new song, “No More Bad Days,” seemingly inspired by the intense motorcycle accident that forced him to relearn how to play guitar. 

As the sun set, Carrabba grabbed an acoustic guitar and closed out the night with earnest fan favorites “Vindicated” and “Hands Down.” When the lights exploded and Carrabba leaped into the air, the crowd sang along: “Hands down this is the best day / I can ever remember.” Judging by the smiles and tears in the crowd, it was hard not to believe it. Zach Oden

Silversun Pickups, 3:20 p.m., Right Field Stage

There are lots of jokes about Innings Fest being a bit of a nostalgia-driven festival, so much so that someone referred to it as “Unc Fest”. That may very well be the case, as most of the acts are well into their second or third decade of recording and touring, and with that comes a bit of crowd anxiety about the laws of diminishing returns. It’s hard to see your heroes get older, and sometimes there is some worry as to whether or not they can still deliver. 

Thankfully, this was absolutely not the case with L.A. quartet Silversun Pickups, who turned the bright outdoor afternoon into a thrumming, thrashing affair more akin to some scuzzy dive bar in the early 2000s than the vibrant Tempe blueskies. 

Guitarist and vocalist Brian Aubert set the tone early with punchy track “New Wave” off their new album, “Tenterhooks,” alternating between chaotic lead fills and chunky rhythm guitar while crowd-favorite bassist and vocalist Nikki Monninger bounced up and down. 

The Pickups covered a lot of ground, offering up favorites like “Panic Switch” from their 2009 album “Swoon.” The song gave Aubert a moment to pause and banter with the crowd, who, lukewarm at first, were clearly sold on the band’s intensity and began bobbing along with the crashing drums and My Bloody Valentine-esque guitar attacks. 

“You guys look so happy, having a present-tense moment. We are so much better than the people running this shit. We look out for us and take care of us and if we do that, they can’t fuck with us,” Aubert said to the raucous crowd. 

The Pickups plowed through the rest of their tight set, closing with favorites “Circadian Rhythm”, “Dots and Dashes” and “Lazy Eye,” the latter stretching into something close to jam band territory. 

On that closer, Aubert pointed at the crowd and winked. If this is indeed an “Unc Fest,” he doesn’t seem pressed, and, like the lyrics of his closing song, the best seems yet to come. Zach Oden

Friday, Feb. 20

Mumford & Sons, 9 p.m., Home Plate Stage

I heard someone say that Mumford & Sons wasn’t a great choice for a first-night Innings headlining set. “They’re not exciting enough,” he said.

What show was he watching?

There have been louder, angrier bands that closed out the first night of Innings Festival. But Mumford & Sons delivered a stirring set that blended their modern classics with a smattering of tunes from their new album, “Prizefighter,” which debuted that day.

Innings Festival is now three days instead of two, making the event a marathon, not a sprint. Mumford & Sons tugged at the heartstrings and thrilled the soul — if the bridge of “I Will Wait” sung by Marcus Mumford and 20,000 fans doesn’t give you the chills, I don’t know what to tell you — ending the evening on an emotional high and setting up the crowd for two more days of great music. Jennifer Goldberg

Myles Smith, 7:55 p.m., Right Field Stage

It’s always a treat when you discover a new favorite at a music festival. I’m late to the boat on Myles Smith, the British-born up-and-comer who closed out the Right Field Stage on Friday night, but I’m on board now.

Smith, dressed in a Diamondbacks jersey, delivered a powerful and heartfelt set, full of songs that managed to be both emotionally poignant and delightfully danceable. Hits like “Nice to Meet You” (mid-set) and “Stargazing” (the closer) amped up an already energetic crowd, as did an unexpected cover of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.”

The only people having more fun than the crowd were Smith’s backup musicians, who scampered around the stage, laughed and joked with each other and played with huge grins on their faces. Their joy was infectious. Jennifer Goldberg

Goo Goo Dolls, 6:35 p.m., Home Plate Stage

By the time I got into the festival, grabbed a bite (Island Boyz Jerk Spot’s jerk fries for the win) and settled in, ’90s mainstays Goo Goo Dolls were just about to hit the stage.

Innings Festival’s lineups lean heavily into millennial nostalgia, and the band delivered perfectly: “Slide,” “Black Balloon,” “Here Is Gone,” “Name” … folks who swayed to these tunes at school dances now swayed to them under the lights of the Home Plate Stage and the glow of the setting sun.

The Goos still look and sound great; frontman John Rzeznik, braving the cold in cropped pants, sounded every bit as crisp and dynamic as he did 30 years ago.

I had already made my way to the Right Field Stage for Myles Smith when Goo Goo Dolls closed their set with “Iris,” but I could hear Rzeznik’s yearning voice across the park. It sounded exquisite. Jennifer Goldberg