REVIEW
BOOM! You Just Got Weezered: Weezer Concert Review at Viejas Arena
Emma Cam
October 28, 2026
October 21st, 2026 marked the night of Weezer's San Diego stop on The Gathering tour. With a set varying from the OGs to meme-ified tracks, the band performed a lengthy set accompanied by quirky jokes and your typical supernatural suburban set design.
Although I was unable to see Silversun Pickups perform, I entered right as The Shins began. Now I can’t lie, I am a fan of The Shins, but I heard from social media and neighboring audience members that they are not good performers, but I don’t know… they were lowkey… epic. Even though they are also white, middle-aged musicians trying to appeal to their predominantly Gen Z crowd, and many of the jokes were cringey, to say the least, they went crazy. I remember seeing the keyboardist also on pedals, and strings, and harmonies, like wow, she was no one-trick pony. The band continued their set, joking with the audience, and then even stopped to call out seat 14, row 10, section R, to point out a gift they set in that seat: A Weezer-themed 12-sided die of destiny. Despite being incredibly jealous, it was endearing to see how the band would interact with the audience.
I mean, I have never been part of a huge wave at the scale of Viejas but the band got everyone to participate in a huge wave during their performance of Everyone’s a Winner. Also, being able to see the mass of people raise their flashlights to “Love Connection,” even though this is no crazy or rare thing to see at a concert, every time I do see it, my heart goes pitter patter. All this being said, I obviously can not skimp out on raving about hearing “Sleeping Lessons” live. This song is definitely part of my life soundtrack, and seeing it live as two people in my periphery danced like there was no tomorrow, it was so beautiful. Indie Sleaze has “All My Friends,” but rock has “Sleeping Lessons.”
Now for the part we have all been looking and waiting for, Weezer. This four-piece band has shaped my childhood, from my mom’s signed Weezer CD to the cover of “Island in the Sun” in Aquamarine; this band unfortunately shaped my love for awkward loser weirdos, myself included.
As an introduction, a short clip played, depicting a little boy being bullied, as per every white A24 coming-of-age boy film, and to fight back he called upon… Weezer. Then came the full reveal of the set design, formatted like a house because duh, Weezer’s playing at my house with interesting graphics in the background – they may be AI? Don’t quote me on that… Anyways, for those who haven’t been to a concert where sitting is an option, at Viejas many chose to sit throughout the performances even the main act, but the second “Surf Wax America” started everyone got up and started to dance; it was in the words of Rivers Cuomo, “lit”... Speaking of Rivers Cuomo, that guy really knows one-liners that catch me off guard. During the “Gold Cam,” where the crowd camera would span across different fans in gold, Cuomo interjected the flow of camera panning to say “San Diego… you sexy bunch of gold diggers,” and I was just like… wait what? Alongside many others who were caught off guard. What. A. Man.
I really loved how much Weezer played into the nostalgia of not only their music but Rock ‘n Roll. Truly, another quote from Rivers Cuomo, "there's something beautiful about the old shhhh”. I mean, mixing it up between songs about existentialist adolescence and full-blown rocking out to “Beverly Hills” with awesome vocal treatments, it was so epic. Nevertheless, if someone were to ask me my favorite part of the show, it would have to be the middle of the set where the power “goes out”, and as an intermission song, an elevator instrumental of “Island in the Sun” played, and wow… everyone was singing to it and that was a #corememory. After said intermission, Weezer played their acoustic set, ranging from individual songs to old deep cuts.
For the final tracks, they played banger after banger, from songs that shaped “loser core” music like “Buddy Holly,” where they called upon a fan to air-guitar the iconic riff, to TikTokified songs like “Go Away,” where they had Nikki from Silversun Pickups sing the feminine part; these concluding songs may have been the best sequence of songs I have ever heard. I mean, not every day am I able to be surrounded by many… like MANY white men singing “Everyone’s a little queer, but can’t she be a little straight. I’m dumb she’s a lesbian”. Anyways, shout out Weezer!