…And Then The Lead Singer Ate A Bunch Of Cigarettes On Stage: Foxy Shazam Kick Off Tour in Atlanta
- Amanda Mack
- Mar 1
- 6 min read
In 2015, the sheer audacity of Eric Nally’s vocal range knocked me for a loop. It came out of nowhere in a song that didn’t feel primed to have anyone who sounded like that in it. You see, he wasn’t mentioned as a featured artist in Macklemore’s hit “Downtown” in the places the song was getting the most plays – like YouTube and the radio – and he doesn’t come in until the near two-minute mark of the song. His appearance in the music video is just as striking, making his entrance on a motorcycle-drawn bald eagle chariot, bare-chested in a fringe jacket and prominent faux-freckles. I quickly learned I wasn’t the only person who’d been flabbergasted yet intrigued by Nally’s vocals and general aura. A Google search using a query that included the words “the man with the voice of a goddamn angel in the new Macklemore video” quickly turned up his name and his main musical project, Foxy Shazam.
In the pre-Peacemaker days, that was most likely a lot of people’s introduction to Foxy Shazam, but the Cincinnati-based band has been at it since 2004, debuting with their LP The Flamingo Trigger, something that was closer to pounding, piano-heavy, post-hardcore, and blooming into theatrical glam rock somewhere around their self-titled album in 2010. The glam rock label really only sticks to their biggest mainstream songs. One of the best things about being a fan is never knowing what musical direction their next release will go in. Foxy Shazam has never married any definite sound. They have too much fun hooking up with all the genres.
Foxy Shazam kicked off their Dumpster Phoenix Tour in Atlanta, Georgia on February 20, 2026, where they played (and jumped and tumbled and flailed about) to a sold-out house in the Purgatory room at The Masquerade. The two bands opening for Foxy on this leg, Moondough and Descartes A Kant, though unquestionably different from Foxy, were exactly what they needed to be – phenomenal and worth coming out for on their own, yet in possession of a shared musical quirkiness that complemented the headliner.
Ken Raymundo, performing as his stage name Moondough, hit the stage first with a four-piece funk band to back him with some slippery, downtempo grooves. Raymundo played from behind a pair of plastic, yellow sunglasses, which was appropriate since much of his set felt like it was being played at sunset on the beach. They slinked their way through an array of singles (which will hopefully make up a debut album soon) before Raymundo broke out a banana and egg shaker to close with his 2024 release, “Vibez”.
Mexico’s Descartes A Kant evoked the spirit of every archive photo of Kraftwerk I’ve ever seen with their clean, uniform look, staccato choreography, and cassette futurism stage visuals. Musically, they’re more playful than the outfits suggest. The guitars get heavy and distorted in places, and the sci-fi themes feel very Technicolor instead of cold and draconian. Their stage show played pretty closely to their most recent concept album, After Destruction. In fact, they performed the intro of the album in its entirety and went into the first track, “Graceless,” to kick off their set. They acted out a few of the album’s spoken interludes which were all really well-done alongside the projected visuals and stage props, but it took up a lot of their set time, so much that I think they only got out five or six songs which felt criminal because it made their time on stage feel like it ended before it ever got the chance to begin.
Sporting a large bandage on this knee from some pre-show shenanigans (I assume this happened off stage since Atlanta was the first stop), Nally hit the stage in a very Nally-fied spin on the classic Henry Rollins getup – shirtless with black shorts, ankle boots, and a sheer, flame-adorned cape. The first few moments of Foxy’s set were spent orienting myself through my camera lens. Every time Nally disappeared from my view in some sudden display of nimbleness, I took a moment to search for and capture another band member who was usually doing something equally as chaotic. Keyboardist, Schuyler "Sky" White, wildly rolled and teetered his keyboard so much (when he wasn’t stepping on it) that I thought it was on a stand with some sort of rounded base. It was not.
Alex Nauth, who sings backing vocals and helps give Foxy the sound that sets them apart from the pack with his trumpet, used every moment he wasn’t blowing into said trumpet to dance and strut the stage, expertly avoiding getting bowled over by Nally’s continuous forward rolls. Bassist, Trevor “Misster Universe” Erb, looked deceptively tame by comparison at the back of the stage, but I noticed the way he started with two ponytails and ended with none. Guitarist Devin Williams thrashed and slung about his guitar through set staples like “Holy Touch” and “Killin’ It”, eventually hitting his signature move of triumphantly balancing his guitar in his mouth. Drummer Teddy Aitkins was the only person forced to be semi-stationary, but he never let that keep him from delivering jaunty, tight beats and vibes that were immaculate the whole night. The result of that is about a hundred blurry photos that could appear in a Bigfoot documentary that will never see the light of day.
What I predicted the setlist to be mostly matched up with what the setlist ended up being. I ripped up and threw most of it out the window when they opened with “It's Hair Smelled Like Bonfire,” which, if Setlist.fm is anything to go by, hasn’t been played since about 2022. The set went on to have a few other surprises. “Wanna-be Angel” got a few delighted gasps from the hardcore fans in the crowd and one of the loudest sing-along moments of the night. The true winner for crowd participation, however, came during “Oh Lord”. Its usage as the theme song for season two of Peacemaker has made it the new main entry point for people discovering the band. “Bittersweet Cherries” from 2023’s Dark Blue Night should have been a place for Nally to recoup a bit. Nauth takes the main vocals on that one live (though it’s rumored that Adam Turla of Murder By Death sings the album version).
But then Nally asked the crowd for cigarettes, and there were multiple people more than ready to provide them. I figured out pretty quickly he wasn’t going to use this moment to catch his breath. Nally lit several cigarettes at once and, after taking a few dramatic drags of them, took them out of his mouth, looked at them curiously, and ate them, business end first. Sparks and smoke flew out of his mouth as he chomped on them. The bit wasn’t visual trickery, and the cigarettes were very real. I immediately had a lot of questions. Chief among them: Did he actually just do that? If so, does he plan to do this at every show? Is it safe to be taking cigarettes of unknown origin and components from the audience? Is he discreetly spitting them out or actually digesting them? It was a carnival sideshow act that my very little pre-show research didn't prepare me for. I've only experienced Foxy on studio albums. I've refused to look up any live performances of theirs online over the years. It is my belief that if you truly love a band, you don't let your first time seeing them on stage be from a YouTube video on a 7-inch screen. That's tragic. But after the initial shock of it wore off, it didn’t even feel like the wildest thing to ever happen at a Foxy Shazam show. The next day, I would go on to open YouTube and watch Nally hang from some real sketchy looking rafters way too high up off the ground, confirming this notion.
Foxy closed their set with “The Only Way to My Heart…” and gave the crowd one last collective push of unfettered chaos before wishing everyone a good night and walking off stage. And that was it. No fake out before coming back for an encore. They didn’t even give the crowd a chance to start a chant for them. The lights came up, the house music came back on, and the crew immediately began breaking down their instruments. I didn’t hear a single grumble or disappointed sigh. It felt like Foxy Shazam’s way of saying, “We left it all out there. There’s nothing left for us to give. We’re releasing you back to your life.” And while I can’t guarantee everyone was all that excited to go back to their life, I don’t think anyone would argue that the brilliant, mad men of Foxy Shazam emptied the tank on the stage for Atlanta.
