New Colossus Festival 2025

Bigger, Better, Still Mostly White and English-Speaking

I’m about a month late, but New Colossus last month was a blast, just like the year before. I don’t have as much to say as last year – first of all, how could I? That is a long, two-part post. Second, most of what I said then still stands, so I’ll start with some updates.

Updates from Last Year

There was no early bird pricing this year, but the cost of badges didn’t go up too much. It was a little under \$200. They also started offering day passes for \$90, or if you just wanted to go to one show, the cover at each show was \$20, like last year.

They gave out foam earplugs for free this year at the main check-in table, which I was happy to see. Still no masks, but they did strike some kind of deal with Tony’s Chocolonely to give out little bite-sized chocolates for free? That was a big hit, I love Tony’s.

The scheduling worked the same way – thirty-minute sets with fifteen minutes in between. Bands still had to scramble to start their sets on time, and for some, sound check ate into their time. I didn’t mind it this time around, though, I guess because I had my expectations in check. Thirty minutes is long enough for a good artist to captivate their audience and leave an impression… and it’s short enough that if I’m not feeling one artist’s music it’s not to hard to just wait for the next set rather than switching to another bar.

On that note, I took things much slower this year. Lots in my life has changed, which I’ll have to discuss in another post, but New Colossus was actually my only weekend at home in March so my energy levels were very different from last year. I wasn’t scurrying from bar to bar or skipping meals to see more music, and I tapped out at around 5pm on Sunday afternoon instead of staying until the evening. I still was dead tired by the end of it and got to have one of those luxurious post-music-festival nights in where I watched lots of TV and didn’t leave my couch except to get into my bed.

I did take Friday afternoon off for New Colossus, (sort of) like I said I would last year! It was the right call.

I’m also fostering a cat currently, her name is Weevil and she is perfect. She’s fairly independent, like most cats are, but she has no teeth, so I needed to be home at relatively reasonable times to feed her. This usually meant staying home until about midday to give her a snack and then feeding her late at night when I got home.

I took about an hour off from the festival on Saturday afternoon to try Katz’ deli for the first time. Delicious! But Katz’ doesn’t need a recommendation from me. Here are a couple of businesses that I want to call people’s attention to:

Local Recommendations

1. Punjabi Deli

I cannot believe Punjabi Deli has been in my life for less than a year. It is a storied institution that I wanted to try each of the dozens of times I walked past it last year, but I guess I never did until later on. It’s now one of my favorite places to eat in the city, as in, easily in the top three.

As for what the food is like, it’s pretty much all in the name. It’s Punjabi food served from a deli counter. It’s all vegetarian, maybe even vegan? I’m not sure. My girlfriend and I like to share one large combo and a drink, and then we each get one samosa for ourselves. (The samosas are out of this world, so if you stop by just to get one as a snack, you won’t be disappointed.) It comes out to less than \$20 and is delicious.

They don’t have much in the way of seating. They have standing-height counters that probably 8 people could fit at, with I think two barstools in the mix. If the weather is nice, I like to eat on the benches outside, but standing at the counter is fine too.

2. Bluestockings Bookstore

Bluestockings continues to hang in there, kind of! Please show them some love if you’re in the neighborhood.

3. Hell Gate’s Food Reviews

Hell Gate is a worker-owned local news outlet here in NYC that I subscribed to a few months back. I subscribed for their reporting on the antics over at City Hall (read their stories about the councilmember who bit a cop to get a sense of what I’m talking about), but I get all of their stuff in my RSS reader, so I’ve incidentally started reading some food reviews, too.

This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who already follows their local newspaper’s dining section, but it was fun to try restaurants I had read about in the paper! (Or, blog, rather.) Hell Gate does a good job of covering some not-fine-dining places and I think dedicates special attention to meals you can get for \$20 or less.

4. Peculier Pub

NYU bar. Too many undergrads, but they’ll let you sit around in there for as long as you want, they have food, and the beer selection is great. I dream of completing their weird punchcard gauntlet.

I don’t think this one counts as “in the neighborhood” but I wanted to give it a mention anyways.

Bigger and Better

That was a fun tangent. Back to the festival itself.

New Colossus added some stages this year and started on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. It was cool to see the the festival expanding its footprint and I liked being able to try out a couple of new bars I hadn’t been to before.

I really liked that the whole festival got bigger, and added some larger venues, even though it meant not being able to even pretend to see most of the artists. Good for New Colossus, and good for me! The slightly higher badge price was more than justified.

Stages

Piano’s continues to be the home base for New Colossus, with Arlene’s around the corner also hosting a lot of shows. Berlin and Bowery Electric participated again this year.

I’m a little confused about the Baker Falls situation? I thought that Baker Falls was another name for Knitting Factory, which was part of New Colossus last year, but in fact the bar known as Baker Falls this year was a completely different place. If you’re reading this and can explain that to me, please drop me an email.

Anyhow, I like Knitting Factory, which was not part of this year’s festival, and I like whatever Baker Falls is, too. I spent a lot of time there on Saturday after doing a lot of day drinking at Piano’s, so the availability of a double cappuccino there was major. The little balcony area is nice, too.

Drom was new to the festival this year, and I went to a few shows there. It’s a bigger space, which I think New Colossus really needed. It was nice to escape the claustrophobia of Piano’s from time to time. The downside there was the price of drinks. Maybe I misunderstood something, but when I asked what their cheapest beer was I think they told me it cost \$10… no way that’s happening.

Nublu and Nublu Classic were new to this year’s festival; I liked Nublu but didn’t go to Nublu Classic. Niagra was also new but I didn’t make it to any shows there either. I honestly can’t remember what Parkside Lounge is or if I’ve been there, which probably means I haven’t.

Sour Mouse was also new to this year’s festival, which was exciting for me because I had been wanting to check it out for a while. Sour Mouse is one of the best places to play foosball in NYC because they have Tornado tables that they keep relatively clean and maintained. I think they charge a cover, so it was nice to be able to go in for free with my festival badge, play a game of foosball, and then see some music.

Tallying it all up, there were 12 stages on Thursday and Friday. Impressive!

The Music

Finally, I can talk about the actual music at this music festival. It was great, obviously. But, again, with the festival getting bigger you can no longer cover a majority of the acts just by being there the whole time and bouncing from bar to bar. Discovering great bands serendipitously is lots of fun if that’s your thing, as is planning your weekend based on which songs you liked from the New Colossus Official Playlist. But seeing all of the “must-see” bands takes a little bit more strategy than it used to – especially because the New Colossus organizers continue to resist the idea of having headliners, as far as I can tell from the schedule. Which I appreciate.

Brooklyn Vegan

Legendary NYC music blog Brooklyn Vegan will be your best friend if you’re trying to make sure you don’t miss any of the best artists. Shortly before the festival, they publish a list of a dozen or so must-see acts, which I resisted reading until Saturday. I had already happened to see a few of the artists they listed, and then I made sure to see Bibi Club on their recommendation. I pretty much agree with their picks. If I were going into New Colossus with more energy, I would have noted their recommendations in advance and then planned my weekend a bit more detail.

Still Mostly White and English-Speaking

Like last year, the US and Canada made up the bulk of the schedule, with the UK and Australia (plus a New Zealand band) thoroughly represented as well. Of the countries (and provinces, I see you, Quebec) that aren’t predominantly English-speaking, European bands consisting mostly of White people still made up the vast majority.

I don’t know what exactly the festival organizers should do about this, and I appreciate them for putting on showcases to highlight some not-necessarily-English-speaking artists: namely Latin Lens, Spanish Wave, and M for Montreal. (These showcases were also predominantly White.)

New Colossus continues to embody that meme that went around a couple years ago, that is captioned “artists announcing a world tour” and shows a world map with North America, Europe, and Australia highlighted. Asia and Africa were egregiously underrepresented. I’d have to check the website more thoroughly to be sure, which I’m not going to do, but I personally only remember one Asian artist (Suichu Spica from Japan) and zero African artists this year.

Highlights

A few of my favorite acts, in no particular order:

Mr. Floyd Larry

Is this blog a Mr. Floyd Larry blog now? They were at New Colossus again this year. I like their music, as anyone reading this blog will already know.

Bibi Club

Bibi Club is two people from Montreal who are so effortlessly quirky and cool, as so many people from Montreal are. They were on Brooklyn Vegan’s list, and I’m glad I read the list in time to make sure I caught Bibi Club.

Their set honestly made me pretty emotional, for a variety of reasons. The music was great and they’re the kind of musicians who are so completely focused on the music that the audience can’t help being captivated, too. On a more personal level, this is a challenging time to be living in the US, and I think Canada represents this idea of escape and refuge and peace for a lot of Americans, at least since the Vietnam War. I know somebody who lived in Montreal for a little while and found a lot of happiness there, before having to come back because some immigration stuff didn’t work out. I thought of them, and I thought of myself, too. I’ve never been to Montreal myself, and Bibi Club represent it the way I imagine it, as a place where I could enjoy a lot of good art and cool people and not feel so afraid all the time.

Sorry for projecting so much onto Bibi Club. Anyways!

Ilandria

I saw Ilandria at Latin Lens. She’s incredible. She actually is local to NYC so I hope to see her again soon. Some highlights were “The Nipple Song” and her cover of the Scooby Doo theme.

Personal Trainer

Personal Trainer is a band from Amsterdam with like a million people in it. Their lead singer sounds kind of like Chris Martin to me and does funny things on stage like taping his shoes to his head and taking sips of audience members’ beers. They were on Brooklyn Vegan’s list. They’re great.

Bakers Eddy

Bakers Eddy is an archetypal Pop Punk Emo Boy Band from New Zealand. I had a blast watching them and wished some of my friends who were also heavily on Tumblr in 2014, consuming a lot of Fall Out Boy et. al., were there to see them with me.

Flowers for the Dead

I first saw FFTD at last year’s New Colossus. They’re great and they continue to get better and better.

Dutch Mustard

First of all, they sounded great. But they also made an impression for having incredible vibes, like, as people. The lead singer was so happy to be in New York and had learned the sound guy’s name and generally seemed like this incredibly nice, infectiously happy person. Great performers. I think they were on Brooklyn Vegan’s list, too.

SunDog

I was thoroughly exhausted on Sunday but stuck around until 5:30 or so to see SunDog. They’re from Anchorage, meaning they came from farther away than a lot of the international acts :-) I’m happy I got to see them, they rock.

The End

Less time and effort went into this year’s post than last year’s. I’m busier than I used to be, and I had already put this thing off for a month. Hopefully I’ll come back some time and add in links, to my other posts, to the festival schedule, and to each band’s website. Maybe I’ll add another highlight or two for bands that I marked as favorites on my paper schedule but now can’t remember very well. For now, I’m happy to have at least jotted my thoughts down.

I’m hoping to make it to next year’s festival! New Colossus is such a treasure of NYC life.