Inhaler "Open Wide" Tour in Houston, Austin, & Dallas

 March 25th, 2025

I was planning to start this post with a joke about how half of my blog is just Inhaler concert recaps, but I'm starting to believe that's just a fact. I began this blog a little over two years ago, in February of 2023, which was right before Inhaler's Cuts & Bruises North American tour. I went to shows in Dallas, Austin, Philadelphia, New York, and LA, and I am pretty sure all of those tour stops made it onto the blog in one way or another... and that doesn't count the ACL Radio Show or their set opening for Pearl Jam that I attended later that same year.

If (when) there are gaps in time on this blog, it is either because I feel what I have to say is repetitive or because I don't think I have enough words to fill a whole post. I think Inhaler posts obviously run the risk of being more on the repetitive side, as I have now seen them 9 times in concert and once for their live acoustic set in the Dell Lounge (so 10 times total, but who's counting?), but these shows are always their own story for me. I have met so many of my best, closest friends through this band and I have seen them live more times than I've seen any other artist. Inhaler concerts are one of my favorite places to be, so I'm always going to have something else to add. Sorry!

This tour was announced while I was sitting through a power outage at work. I was in my favorite coworker (my mom)'s classroom in the dark when I got the notification, and we quickly connected that the three Texas dates fell on the first three weekdays of our district's spring break, so we were already guaranteed the time off for travel.

This is where I may get redundant because I am positive I've mentioned this in a post before, but my mom was the original Inhaler fan in my household. She introduced me to Inhaler's music a few summers ago by bringing my attention to "It Won't Always Be Like This" playing on the radio, and I downloaded their debut album to listen to while we were on our family vacation. I knew almost immediately that I'd be obsessed with the music, so it did not take long for us to become the visible stereotype of "U2 Parent" and "Inhaler Daughter" that you see floating around at most of their shows. 

My parents are both typically spot on with introducing me to new music. They are almost always successful when they give me recommendations of artists or songs to look into because they have such a good sense of what I like. Through the years, my taste has grown to align with each of theirs in different areas, which rocks, because I always have someone to share things with. They are both huge live music fans, too, so going to concerts with one or both of them is always a treat for me too.

Though the Inhaler train started with me and my mother, it has since spread to other members of my family. My talks with my dad about the band are usually centered around things he's heard other people say about their shows compared to my own personal experiences, but he has not yet been to a show with us... (I'm thinking it's his turn next. He would love it). My little sister, Bryna, got really invested in the music while the band was touring Cuts & Bruises just after I bought her a ticket for the Austin show. It was too late for her to hop on tour with me, but she got a lot of sweaty FaceTime calls and front-row videos from all over the country as I traveled with other friends. When the band came back through Austin later that same year on tour with Pearl Jam, Bryna went with me for our Inhaler-filled day of ACL radio and their opening set at Moody later that night. She was well-prepared this time around, so she went with me to all three of the concerts I'm about to write about. She has been my self-assigned concert buddy for years despite living hours away, so I loved getting to share this week with her!!

March 17th, 2025 - House of Blues, Houston

I am a known hater of the city of Houston, but I will make the journey through hell for a show if the occasion is right, and Inhaler on Saint Patrick's Day seemed worthy of the humidity battle. I saw and heard lots of fan discourse about why Inhaler would pick somewhere like Houston Texas for their very special Saint Paddy's Day show, and I have decided it is ultimately because the holiday is a much bigger deal to the Americans in the crowd than it's ever been to the Irish guys on stage. The band doesn't even wear green for the occasion... but regardless, Bryna and I drove to Houston with my dear friend Emily, who I met in line at Inhaler in Dallas two years ago and traveled to LA with for Inhaler about three weeks after that, and we met up with my dear friend Mia, who I also met in line at Inhaler in Dallas and later attended the ACL radio show and Pearl Jam show with. Both of them have become my go-to concert partners in crime, so I was really excited for us all to spend a few days together.

Even if the band isn't on board, I love a theme of any kind. I packed green tights and shamrock accessories so we could all avoid being pinched in the crowd.

This was my first time at the House of Blues in Houston, so I was interested to discover it is on the second or third story of a mall (?) downtown. Though this was kind of odd, I thought it made a lot of sense for the queuing process and it worked out well for those of us who were leisurely arriving, because we were able to get dinner and drinks at a restaurant attached to the mall before the show without worrying too much about timing.

I was surprised by how much smaller this venue felt than the Dallas location. Which, in retrospect, makes sense with all things considered, but instead of having a larger concert room and a smaller one, there only seemed to be one mid-sized room in the venue. Even against the back wall of the venue, we were still the same distance from (if not closer to) the stage we would have been if we had stopped by the soundbooth in the Dallas House of Blues. We had easy access to merch and the bar, both of which we had quick, wonderful experiences with, and we had a clear view of the stage with plenty of room to enjoy the show.

We jumped, screamed, danced, sang, and got a couple of shoutouts from Eli on stage for the energy in the back of the room. My personal favorite was the "who is at the bar?" call out, because it was, in fact, just the four of us amidst a bunch of the scattered "U2 Parents". I had a friend in the front of the pit say that she could see our heads bopping through the crowd each time he pointed our way, which is both hilarious and an excellent sign that we were doing things right back there.

The band plays pretty much the same set every night, which has become (thankfully) about 20-30 minutes longer than it was last tour, but there has been one slot on the setlist that has been rotating between a few song options. The special song for Houston was "In My Sleep," the closing song on their debut album. A member of the band told me a few years ago before their Saint Patrick's Day show in New York that they deem this to be their "most Irish sounding song," so we were anticipating that one a bit. Getting an older song sprinkled into the newer mixes is always an exciting thing, and there may or may not be absurd video proof of us losing our minds over the song being played... even if it was a bit of a predictable choice. We had so much fun this night!

March 18th, 2025 - Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater in Austin

This was another location loss for me because Stubbs has secured its spot as my second least favorite venue of all time. First place is, of course, White Oak Music Hall in Houston, which I will be avoiding for the rest of my life if I can help it. That being said, I think my Stubbs hatred can be verified by just about anyone who has ever attended a show there. This venue is outdoors with an uneven, gravel ground. The stage is positioned at the bottom of an off-balanced hill, so even if you manage to get close in the crowd, there is a solid chance you will not be able to see anyway. Some of my friends attended Role Model's show here a few weeks ago and were already over the idea of walking back into the venue before we arrived, so we once again opted to dance in the back of this "pit" instead of trying to squish up into the crowd.

Luckily, the weather for this show was ideal for an outdoor concert. We met up with more friends for dinner and even more inside, which amped-up our circle of shouting lyrics in each others' faces. The song that was rotated onto this setlist was "The Charms," a personal favorite of mine from the new album, so I was very excited to take an awful video from the top of the Stubbs hill to remember the moment by. Do not worry, I will not be posting that. <3 But we had the best time with this one, too.

March 19th, 2025 - House of Blues in Dallas

Here is when the luck of the Irish seemed to taper off a bit...

The camping experience for this tour has been outrageous across the country, so we knew to expect to see the line starting a bit too early. I was thinking it would definitely be before the sun came up, but I was shocked to find out the fan line for this show started at 11pm the night before.

Now, I love a good camping experience every once in a while, and I can safely say that I probably love Inhaler more than the next guy, but that is an insane time to start a line for an artist with 1.5 million monthly listeners in a venue with a 2.5k capacity.

My friends and I persevered through the exhaustion and the craziness of all of that and arrived hours and hours after 11pm, which was still in perfect time to secure ourselves good places in line. There were signs posted by the venue around where the line wrapped with bullet points of information about how they would not honor fan numbering systems and the line was permitted to start as early as 6am. (Yes, I'm a bit confused by the line starting 7 hours before that, too).

All that being said, I have "camped" at the House of Blues before, so this was not surprising to see posted. I have been to dozens of concerts at this venue over the course of the last 10 years, my first show inside being in the summer of 2015, and I have never had any issues with the staff or line organization.

The venue has sold fast passes for shows before, which is something that is a bit newer to the concert scene (I don't remember ever seeing those pre-covid). They are essentially a pass to skip the line with early entry to the venue. Because of how intense camping culture has become over the course of the past few years, fans will choose to wait in line for hours and still purchase fast passes in order to secure the spots they camped for, which does sort of defeat the intended purpose of the pass, but it is the only way to have everyone enter the venue in the "fair" order.

Several fans in line called and dmed the venue asking about the passes, which were not sold online in advance, just to verify that early entry was not going to be sold later in the day. Through all of those interactions, fans got the confirmation that there would be no fast passes and we would be let into the venue as is.

The House of Blues loves to fill your email inbox with information about VIP upgrades before you attend their shows. These VIP upgrades are for table seating in a reserved section at the back of the venue, where you are waited on for drinks and appetizers throughout the night. These upgrades do come with priority entry, but this typically means they have early access to the seats they paid for. Somewhere down the line, people purchased tables for this show to use in place of fast passes, and the venue decided to honor that decision instead of keeping things as they usually are.

I would ordinarily be irritated by the decision to allow such a large crowd to purchase these tables just to leave them empty, but I found myself more frustrated with the way the venue staff handled the switch-up. These tables were $150 for four seats, so even if groups split the cost, that was still at least $38 a person instead of the usual $20 for a fast pass. It seemed that the venue took away the fast pass option and offered this VIP entry as an alternative simply so they could make double the money off of the young girls in line, which struck me as odd for multiple reasons.

Inhaler's crowd in North America has grown to be comprised of mostly underage girls and young women. Selling these girls expensive bar seating simply so they could skip the line felt like a sneaky way around handling things the correct way, especially when people had directly contacted the venue in advance to inquire about early entry before the event.

As I said before, I have been in crazy fan lines at this venue countless times in the past 10 years, and I have never struggled to find a staff member who could kindly answer questions the way I did on Wednesday. I watched handfuls of young girls approach staff with genuine confusion about the way things were changing, because none of this information was clearly stated in any of the emails we received, and the staff rudely shut down everything that came up.

Seeing a professional treat anyone like this would have bothered me regardless, but I was extremely bothered to see so many men on staff dismiss the concerns of young women who were seriously asking for help. I understand that a crowd of angry and confused teenage girls may feel like something to roll your eyes about, but treating them any differently than you would any other crowd is minimizing and hurtful. Seeing the young crowd, specifically women, be deliberately ignored and met with demeaning and underhanded approaches felt gross to watch, especially because the staff was mostly adult men.

To say I was disappointed with my experience at this venue would be an understatement. I attended a show here on Sunday of this same week, was greeted by many of the same staff members, and I had a wonderful, easy, chill experience. I would have never expected to see things play out the way they did. It was disappointing for me, yes, but this was far from being my first or only chance to see the band up close. I was especially sad for the people in line who had traveled for the show and those who tried to ask for assistance and were not met with kindness or the answers they needed.

I think there are several simple solutions to the problems presented, all of which I'm sure will also be ignored so the venue can continue to excessively profit off of taking advantage of young audiences. There isn't much to do other than make you all aware of the mistreatment and miscommunication that took place so you can be cautious when attending events at this venue in the future. I hope to see things change and for their typical order to be restored the next time I inevitably find myself back there.

Luckily for the House of Blues, Inhaler were so good that they balanced out my experience!

I had a pretty big group of friends in this line that split up when we got inside, but four of us wound up in the center of the 4th row. We had originally been numbered as 21-24 in line, which was a disappointing knowing we would have been front row with those spots, but we still had a great view and a great time. It was just a bit of a drawback to have a hundred extra people in front of us.

I realize this post is probably making it sound like I had the worst night of my life. And if I'm honest, this was not even close to the worst experience I've had with fast passes or venue staff. That may be sad to think about comparatively, but it is the simple truth as someone who attends so many shows in so many places. Even with all of mess that added up for the day, I still got to spend time with my friends, sister, and we became well acquainted with some girls in line who brightened the experience for us as well. My mom and older sister, Addi, had balcony tickets for this show, so we were able to spot them above us from our spots on the floor, which was cute and fun for a minute before, too.

Inhaler's special song on this setlist was "Even Though", another new one, and I was excited to see that performed up close. I love to be in a crowd with a lot of movement, so I still had an incredible time through the length of their set. There were a few rougher fans pushing people around, so I did end the show in the second row rather than the fourth and down two entire fingernails. I was thrown in the middle of a setlist battle started by a grown man slide-tackling a young woman. They brawled it out around my ankles and on my feet and that was a bit more intense than I would have expected it to be, but I should not have been surprised by the actions of any grown man in that venue anymore lol. There were punches thrown and I've had green bruises up my shins for a week, but I suppose that's all just part of the risk you sign up for at a general admission show. I was fine, a kind bystander pulled me out before it got too bad, and the girl kept her setlist at the end of it all.

There were a lot of people in all of the crowds excited to see Benches, but their fans seemed most prominent in Dallas. I had not seen them before this run of shows, but they match the vibe of Inhaler's music much more than any other opener I've personally seen tour with them in the past, so I really enjoyed those sets each night as well. My mom has mentioned Anson's (lead singer's) flare pants at least three times in the past week, proving their style was up to par, and the music was fun to experience live. I'd be interested to see them headline a show in the future!

I know many fans got to meet the band after this show, which was not the case for other Texas cities on this tour. Bryna and I opted to go home to our beds this time around. After the day we had... we did not want to stand around the House of Blues for an extra three hours.

I forgot to mention that amidst the chaos of the day, or rather, before the chaos really began, Bryna and I met Bobby (the bassist) on the sidewalk behind the venue in the afternoon. We were in her parked car in the early steps of doing our makeup when the band arrived. We initially decided we did not want to bother them until we saw 3/4 of them taking photos and chatting with a couple of fans across the street. We did not want to interrupt any existing conversations, but Rob approached us first to say hi. We talked for a while about our days so far, he gave us a small Target haul (he was still holding the sack), and we took a quick picture before he had to go inside.

As you may remember (because I won't let anyone forget), I met Rob almost exactly two years ago in Philadelphia after the concert. Both conversations I've had with him have been pretty casual, one-on-one style moments without much of a time limit, and both times he has been incredibly sweet and engaging. I am always impressed when artists still manage to be gracious with fans and take the time to speak individually with everybody they can, especially as an artist who deals with large capacities of people all the time. 

I was especially excited to have Bryna with me for this. She was the first phone call I made after meeting him the first time, and it was fun for us to get to do everything together this tour. He's also just hilarious in conversation and I'm glad she gets it now, too.

March 26th, 2025

This post is probably dreadfully long by now. I meant what I said about always having something to say when it came to this band!

Texas rounded out the (first) North American leg of this tour, and I loved getting to go to my three shows with some of my bestest friends. As always, I'm looking forward to any other announcements they have in store for the U.S. this year. I love nothing more than a concert, especially when I get to make a day of it for my favorite artists, so that is something I will definitely be on the lookout for. 

(Everyone pray they continue to plan tours that align with my breaks. That would be really awesome for everyone involved, but mostly just me). Maybe I'll go to my 10th Inhaler show this year? We'll see!

Thanks for reading! Especially if you made it all the way to this point in the post! You rock!