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Free Throw in Phoenix

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Free Throw
The Van Buren — Phoenix, AZ
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About Free Throw

Free Throw is a pop punk and emo band from New Jersey that built a devoted following on the strength of introspective songwriting and infectious melodies. Their 2016 debut "What's Golden" introduced listeners to singer Mat Kerekes' particular brand of anxious vulnerability, where he'd examine his own neuroses with the kind of specificity that made them feel universal. Songs like "Lavender" and "Strawberry" became the kind of tracks people looped endlessly, catching new details in the production each time. The band kept releasing solid records—"Piecing It Together" and "Jet Black Jetpack"—each time refining their approach without losing the raw emotional core that made people connect in the first place. They're the kind of band that plays smaller venues but inspires genuine devotion from the people who find them.

Their crowds are engaged and vocal, singing along to every word like these songs have been soundtracking their lives. Energy is intense but intimate, the kind of show where people genuinely feel heard. Kerekes connects with the room; it doesn't feel performative.

Known for Lavender, Strawberry, Graphic, Map of the Sun, Gawker

Free Throw + Phoenix

Free Throw rolled through the Nile Theater in Phoenix on March 31, 2025, running through a 16-song set that felt less like a greatest hits run and more like hanging in someone's basement while they played everything they'd written. They opened with "Such Luck" and "Two Beers In"—the kind of songs that set a tone of casual self-deprecation—before diving into deeper material like "How I Got My Shrunken Head" and "What Day Is It, October?" The setlist was heavy on songs that feel lived-in, the type of tracks that land harder when you're in a room with maybe a few hundred other people who actually know the words. "Randy, I Am the Liquor" closed things out, which feels appropriately on-brand for a band whose song titles read like inside jokes between friends.

Free Throw in Phoenix News

Live Music in Phoenix

Phoenix's indie rock scene has quietly built something real over the past decade, moving past the days when booking a guitar band meant hoping for a decent turnout. Free Throw fits naturally into a city that's learned to support bands that aren't trying to be arena acts—groups that excel in midsize venues and actually connect with audiences. The local DIY ethos still runs deep, and bands like Free Throw benefit from a crowd that shows up because they actually care about the songs, not the name.

Phoenix road trip to see Free Throw?

Stay in Arcadia, where tree-lined streets and restored Craftsman homes give you actual neighborhood texture instead of generic sprawl. Eat at Otro, where the cooking is precise without being pretentious. Hit the Heard Museum if you want to understand what Arizona actually is beneath the tourism layer. Hike Camelback Mountain early morning before the heat makes it punishing. Spend an afternoon at Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home, which feels oddly fitting for a band that cares about emotional architecture. The whole city slows down at sunset in a way that makes Dashboard's introspection feel less like melancholy and more like clarity.

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