October 2025
“I think that’s the only time anyone’s crowdsurfed during one of our shows,” said a smiling Jenny Lewis from stage in between songs she performed with her ballad driven indie band Rilo Kiley.
Such was the energy levels sustained across three days during this year’s Best Friends Forever Festival held at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center. In its second year, BFF Fest brought a lineup of emo and indie adjacent bands and performers to the Nevada desert for a nostalgia trip for Millennial era sad boys and scene girls.
Jimmy Eat World, Minus The Bear, and Jawbreaker headlined different nights over the weekend, while Cursive performed two nights, playing one of their albums in its entirety at each set. Post hardcore group Mineral announced that Best Friends Forever would be their final show as a band. Heavy hitters in the emo scene like Elliott, Bear vs. Shark, Texas Is The Reason, Superchunk, and Pedro The Lion made appearances. Straight up heavy bands like Wednesday and These Arms Are Snakes performed over the weekend. The festival also did a great job of bringing on younger current bands who themselves played some impressive sets such Febuary, Awakebutstillinbed, and Tiger Bike. And epic sets from the older rock group Pretty Girls Make Graves as well as the younger emo flagbearers Marietta.
In only its second year, Best Friends Forever has established itself as being the destination festival for fans of emo. Demonstrating this was the couple who got married in front of the Best Friends Forever art installation between the two stages, and the number of offsite club shows that took place throughout downtown Las Vegas each night after the outdoor festival ended.
When the headliners took the stage, the standing room only area was a solid sea of people stretching about 2/3 of the way back. Alternating stages ensured that no bands’ sets overlapped with one another. And while the afternoon sun beat down relentlessly on the grounds, those who opted for VIP tickets at least had covered seating areas and bleachers to sit down on. Though, as may be expected, GA was where the energy was. And those crowd surfers that Jenny Lewis mentioned appeared almost like a flowing river of bodies surfing over the barricade during Philadelphia band Marietta’s set.
While most of the older attendees could date a lot of the bands performing back to their own angsty coming of age years, it seemed to be all smiles across the stages as well as the audience for most of the weekend. Though bands like Elliott made a point of saying that their band favors love over the current presidential administration in no uncertain terms, which was met with loud cheers from the crowd. And the audience who was too young to have seen most of these bands during their first go around… they were the energetic bunch who danced, sang along, and hoisted each other up during even the mellow bands’ sets. It seems like the scene made up of middle age emo bands is exactly where it should be.
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