🎧 Downbeat.fm Vol. 6 Track 12

This month's playlist features VIAL, Weird Nightmare, Kingfisher, Haley Heynderickx, The Belair Lip Bombs, Market, and more!

Mike Rastiello

09 Jan 2026 — 3 min read

A few years ago, I set up a spreadsheet to track the concerts I attend, starting with my first in 1994. I list the date, the venue, city, state, and a link to the setlist on Setlist.fm - which was a critical piece of figuring out all of the dates for my shows.

I made this spreadsheet because I'm a dork and I like insights into my madness.

Insights such as:

I've averaged 16-17 shows a year since 2022 (that's 1.4 shows a month)
Mohawk in Austin was the venue I've seen the most shows at (20)
87% of the shows that I have seen have been in Texas
68% of all the shows that I have seen have been in Austin

Over the course of 2025, I saw 15 different live shows across Austin and one show in Phoenix. In those 15 shows, there were 14 different venues and about 35 acts, though probably a little north of 40, since I don't always track the opening bands.

Looking over the list of bands I saw this year, there were 23 bands that I saw for the first time - including longtime favorites, Deftones, but there were also a few bands that I had seen a few times before,

Queens of the Stone Age (6)
Thursday (6)
Pool Kids (4)
Slothrust (3)
Toadies (3)
Home is Where (3)
Soccer Mommy (3)
Pom Pom Squad (3)
Violent Femmes (2)
Death From Above 1979 (2)
Murdocks (2)

I saw shows at three new venues, Rilo Kiley at The Van Buren in Phoenix (also the only show outside of Texas), Queens of the Stone Age at the Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas, and Radio/East for two different shows.

Two concerts from 2025 stand out to me.

The first was seeing Rilo Kiley in Phoenix. I got into Rilo Kiley shortly before they broke up, so I never saw them live. I always told my wife that if they ever announced a reunion tour, I would fly to wherever I had to see the show. Well, the universe smiled at me and provided me with a reunion tour. Phoenix was the city on the tour list that we thought would be the most fun, and we spent a nice long weekend in Phoenix.

The show was fun, and the audience was full of people waiting for that night, just like I had for almost 15 years.

The best show of the year, though, was Queens of the Stone Age: The Catacombs Tour. Since I wrote about it in last month's newsletter, I won't say much here, except that the full film was finally released on YouTube. A recording of the live show will also air on Austin City Limits on PBS sometime in early 2026.

2026's concert line up is filling in nicely with 5 shows through June, including a major act that I've never seen before - Nine Inch Nails.

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, please check out A Moment in Rock, a small blog that I launched earlier this year where I post one photo from almost every concert I see.

Decemeber's Playlist

Before we get to December's playlist, here is a long playlist of every song that has appeared on a playlist this year. You can check out the ~14 hour playlist on Apple Music and Spotify.

This month's playlist features VIAL, Weird Nightmare, Kingfisher, Haley Heynderickx, The Belair Lip Bombs, Market, and more!