At a certain point, nostalgia tours start to feel like museum pieces. Aly & AJ have quietly avoided that fate. Their stop at Strand Ballroom in Providence Tuesday night felt like a band fully in control of their past, present, and whatever version of indie pop they feel like trying on next.
The room certainly helped. Coming off a bigger Boston date at Roadrunner last fall, the scaled-down setting worked in their favor. The crowd packed in tight, a mix of Gen Z fans and Millennials who probably first heard these songs on an iPod Nano. It gave the night a kind of shared memory energy, like everyone was in on the same long-running fandom.
Hayden Blount opened the show with an easy charm, slipping in a cover of Harry Styles that landed well with the early crowd. At one point he shrugged and admitted, “I know who you’re all really here for,” which got a laugh because, yeah, he wasn’t wrong. Still, he held the room better than most openers manage to, no small feat when the audience is already halfway in the headliner’s world.
Aly & AJ hit the stage with “Silver Deliverer,” kicking off the “Places to Run” tour set with one of their more recent standouts. It’s a smart opener, and it set the tone for a setlist that jumped comfortably between eras. Tracks like “Dandelions” and “Slow Dancing” leaned into their more mature, western-adjacent sound, while “Rush” and “Like Whoa” brought flashes of the bright, fizzy pop that made them in the first place.
They’ve gotten good at threading that needle. There’s no awkward reinvention here, no desperate attempt to outrun their Disney-era roots. Instead, they treat their catalog like a spectrum. “Pretty Places” and “Don’t Need Nothing” felt expansive in the smaller room, while “Chemicals React” still hits like an earworm you can’t shake.
The closing stretch leaned into the inevitable. “Places to Run” wrapped the main set, with Aly tossing out, “This is our last one, we have places to run!” It’s a solid line, a little on the nose, and delivered with just enough self-awareness to land. Nobody bought it, of course. The crowd barely moved, phones already halfway in the air.
“Potential Breakup Song” remains the gravitational center of the Aly & AJ universe, and when it finally arrived, the room flipped. Every lyric screamed back, every phone recording, every millennial muscle memory firing at once. It’s the kind of moment that could feel dated in the wrong hands. Here, it felt earned.
Outside the music, the duo also took a moment to highlight their partnership with Everytown for Gun Safety, the charity supported on this tour. It’s a cause that carries personal weight for them following the 2022 Sacramento shooting, and in a city still processing recent violence of its own, the message landed with a quiet seriousness that cut through the usual concert chatter.
If there’s a throughline to Aly & AJ in 2026, it’s this: they know exactly what people came for, and they’ve figured out how to give it to them without getting stuck there. At Strand Ballroom, that balance felt locked in. Not a nostalgia act. Just a band that’s grown up, still having fun, and still very aware that some songs never really leave you.
Grab your ticket to the “Places to Run” tour here.
Nathan Smith is a Providence-based music photographer and journalist focusing on capturing the special moments and unfiltered magic of live performances. Whether he’s shooting established artists at sold-out TD Garden shows or documenting the rise of emerging local bands, his goal is the same: to pull viewers directly into the heart of the moment.
His writing spotlights rising artists and local scenes, with a focus on telling the stories that often get overlooked. A lifelong music fan and musician himself, Nathan approaches interviews and portraits as conversations rather than transactions, building trust with artists so their genuine personalities can shine through. Whether he’s backstage, in the photo pit, or at home in front of the keyboard, he brings the same curiosity and care to every assignment.
Outside of his press work with Juice Box Press, Nathan works regularly as a photographer with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as numerous bands in the Boston and Providence area. Nathan also plays violin with a local orchestra, follows Celtics basketball almost religiously, and is an avid fantasy reader.