Wheatus Live: Reliving the 2000s all over again
O2 Institute, Birmingham, 29 November 2025
The mood in Birmingham’s O2 Institute is lively and nostalgic as one of the great bands to soundtrack the early 2000s prepares to take the stage. Wheatus, the US band synonymous with pop-punk, American high school movie soundtracks, and an era that gave us Simple Plan, Sum 41, and Blink 182, has returned to the UK, greeted with the cult affection few bands manage to maintain.
Birmingham marks the sixth stop on the band’s UK leg as they celebrate the 25th anniversary of their self-titled debut album, Wheatus, which they’re performing in full each night, before continuing south, heading down under and eventually wrapping up in North America.
His boyish, melodic tone remains remarkably close to the original recordings, which is amazing to hear live
From the outset, the show is a democracy – ‘That’s how it works, you say it, we play it’, says frontman Brendan B. Brown, who invites requests from every corner of the room. This openness sets a spontaneous tone for the night, which matches the band’s relaxed, no-fuss stage presence. We later find out they’ve even planted a crew member in the crowd to gather suggestions from any shyer concert-goers, which is a thoughtful touch.
Things kick off with a punchy track, ‘Hump’em n’ Dump’em’, before they launch into a cover of Green Day’s ‘Basket Case’, where the gain-heavy guitars and the dual drum kit setup give the songs a gritty live punch that carries through the rest of the set.
Brown’s impressive vocal performance anchors the entire show, and his boyish, melodic tone remains remarkably close to the original recordings which is amazing to hear live. He somehow manages to get all the words out in breathless songs like ‘Lemonade’, bring real tenderness to yearning tunes like ‘A Little Respect’, and execute some impressive nimble vocal runs and high notes in songs like ‘Anyway’.
He later quips about the group’s confusing lore, saying “It’s worse than Fleetwood Mac – you have no idea”
This last song is a new find for me, and a set standout as the catchy, self-deprecating refrain gets into my head immediately: “So I’m a jerk and I’m a weirdo / And even if I’m lucky, I’ll amount to zero / But I thought that you’d love me anyway”, sung with the endearing earnestness of a frustrated, lovesick teenager.
As we move between songs, Brown’s humour keeps the audience very entertained as he and co-producer Phillip Jiminez pepper the setlist with anecdotes of the band’s messy history. At one point, he jokes he wrote a song when he thought his fiancé’s husband would kill him in his sleep, and later quips about the group’s confusing lore, saying “It’s worse than Fleetwood Mac – you have no idea”. However, their refreshing, unfiltered honesty is not always played for laughs: introducing ‘Fourteen’, a tonally darker song about the exploitation of the young, Brown confidently declares, “Release the motherfucking Epstein files you scumbags”, which is met with resounding cheers.
The band are a tight unit, giving us energy from start to finish with backing vocals and harmonies led by Gabrielle Sterbenz and Joey Slater, adding depth to the sound. Given the nature of the band’s sound, songs occasionally bleed into one another, but unexpected touches like a harmonica on ‘Leroy’, and the occasional key or sax solos help offset this.
“We aren’t the band that hates their big song – we’re the other band”
Finally comes the moment the crowd have been waiting for – the timeless ‘Teenage Dirtbag’. Though the band teased an abridged ‘Christmas Dirtbag’ earlier in the night, they have saved the real thing for the finale, which has only heightened anticipation. If it wasn’t already clear from their energy how they feel about playing it 25 years on, Brown tells it to us straight: “We aren’t the band that hates their big song – we’re the other band.”
We burst into song with Brown in an incredibly satisfying moment. The song pauses a few times for stories and asides that slightly break momentum. Of course, part of you just wants to shout the anthem from start to finish, but one can hardly fault them for wanting to prolong the moment we’ve all waited for. The atmosphere is electric, reaching its peak when Brown’s unmistakable falsetto takes centre stage, and he nails that iconic ‘female’ vocal bridge – “I’ve got two tickets to Iron Maiden baby / Come with me Friday don’t say maybe / I’m just a Teenage Dirtbag baby like you”. The crowd then erupts in a cathartic chorus of ‘Oh yeahs’ – the perfect, joyful high to end the night on, the kind that reminds you why the song, and Wheatus themselves, have endured well past their early 2000s moment.
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