By “Tampa” Earl Burton
We have come to the end of another year…and it’s been an exhausting one. We won’t go into details, but we will say that the 2025 concert season helped alleviate issues that seemed to arise on a daily basis. And that is what concerts are there for – an opportunity for us to leave our concerns at the concert gates and revel in the music that we all enjoy.
Over the past twelve months, I’ve had the opportunity to see several shows that really impressed me. They covered both the veterans of the rock and roll world and the newcomers, but what was impressive about all these shows was the passion the artists displayed on stage. Hopefully, you got a chance to see one of these shows over the past 365 days, and if you didn’t, make a New Year’s resolution to SEE MORE CONCERTS!
Honorable Mention – Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening
He has been doing this for the last fifteen years, but the salute from drummer Jason Bonham to his father’s old band, Led Zeppelin, never seems to get stale. Bonham & Company’s late November show at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Event Center was a fiftieth anniversary salute to the Zep classic Physical Graffiti, and it brought the goods to the sold-out audience. Along with faithful renditions of “Houses of the Holy” and “Trampled Under Foot” (my personal fave was “Black Country Woman”), Bonham regaled the audience with tales from his late father, John, and his own personal remembrances of the period. It was an outstanding evening of music and, should Bonham come near you, it is a show you should see.
- Summer of Loud
Jonathan Reeves of Amity Affliction. Cell phone photo-Earl Burton. This was a tour that could have gone off the rails easily. Bringing together eight bands for a performance was difficult enough, but when you must cram them into a day’s schedule, the potential for problems was high. As it was, the inaugural Summer of Loud tour, which landed at the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre in Tampa back in June, was able to go off without a hitch, much to the delight of the metalcore denizens in the venue.
The Summer of Loud brought together up-and-coming bands – TX2, Australia’s Alpha Wolf, Amity Affliction, and The Devil Wears Prada – who more than held their own on stage with powerhouse headliners I Prevail, Beartooth, Killswitch Engage, and Parkway Drive. The Tampa crowd was treated to an appearance by the original Killswitch Engage vocalist, Howard Jones, while the other headliners absolutely crushed their sets. By the end of the hard-rock assault, the fans were drained yet energized; I certainly hope that Summer of Loud becomes an annual event.
- The Joe Perry Project
Joe Perry of the Joe Perry Project. Photo by Chyrisse. When you are over seventy years old, you expect a slowdown in your performance. Someone should have told Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry about this factoid, as he came into the Hard Rock Event Center in August with his guns, AKA his guitars, blazing. The Joe Perry Project, featuring Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes on vocals, Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots on bass, and Brad Whitford and Buck Johnson of Aerosmith, who moonlighted with bandmate Perry, laid down a smoking show in August that was a tour down Memory Lane for rockers.
Of course, Perry and the Gang hit the Aerosmith classics, tossed in with some Perry solo work, but it was the addition of material from the Crowes and STP that really made the show special. Kudos also to Jared James Nichols, a hard rock/blues guitar wizard who opened the show for the Project, as he set the tone for a brilliant evening of rock and roll.
- Ghost
The top show of 2025 was more of a production than it was a concert. Tobias Forge, the puppet master behind the scenes for the band Ghost, brought the Skele-TOUR to (then) Amalie Arena for a show in July. There was no opening act, but the enthusiastic fans that were in attendance did not need one for the show that Forge and Ghost provided that night.
You could see the theatrical background in Forge come through for the entirety of the Ghost show, which layered in the appropriate moodiness amid the band’s power. Forge, as always, led “The Congregation” throughout the show, and the fans fed off the performance from “Papa Emeritus” and Company. It was the best concert, musically and in terms of performance, which came to the area this year.
2026 is already lining up to have some exciting concerts. Do yourself a favor and get out and see these artists and bands perform…life is short, buy the concert tickets!
- Rockin’ in the Free World – Best Rock Albums of 2025 - December 30, 2025
- Rockin’ and Rollin’ the Year Away – The Best Concerts of 2025 - December 23, 2025
- Hard Rock Rising Crowns Champion on Wednesday at the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa - November 20, 2025
