The Airborne Toxic Event Electrifies Philadelphia with Energetic Performance and Unforgettable Encore at The Fillmore

Written and Captured By | Joanna Mizak

Riding the high of their latest album release, The Airborne Toxic Event continued their 2024 tour at The Fillmore in Philadelphia on September 24. Despite their debut, self-titled album being released over a decade ago, the band still manages to draw a large and energetic crowd.  

The show opened with a performance by Tyler Ramsey, a guitarist, vocalist and harmonicist. Joined on stage by a bassist and drummer, the trio played an indie, soft rock set, similar to Waxahatchee who played at the Fillmore a few weeks earlier. The group traveled from Asheville, NC though the bassist was a Philly native. After their set, the group was seen mingling in the crowd presumably with the bassist’s family who had come out to show their support. The calm and friendly demeanor that they had brought on stage definitely wasn’t an act as the group humbly returned backstage.  

See more photos of Tyler Ramsey HERE

The Airborne Toxic Event came out on stage one at a time as fans applauded and then immediately began with “Hollywood Park”. The band continued with a few more songs as fans settled in, but the energy really picked up when they got to “Gasoline” followed by “Hell and Back”. At this point during the show Airborne Toxic Event’s frontman Mikel Jollett paused the show to address “the hiss thing” coming from the audience. According to Jollett the band played a show in Philly around ten years ago where a group in the front started hissing “out of nowhere” that turned into the whole audience hissing and became known as “The Philly Hiss”. Things got more intimate when the band started “Glory” off their newest album of the same name. Jollett called the song very personal and important to him before playing and the audience respected the gravity of the moment.  

See more photos of The Airborne Toxic HERE

Keeping with the routine of the tour so far, they saved “Come On Out” and “Sometime Around Midnight” towards the end of the set and ended with “All I Ever Wanted”.  The encore also didn’t seem to hold many surprises, but Philadelphia did get lucky with a five song encore including a mashup of “Missy”, Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom City Blues”. While the band has done five songs in an encore before on this tour, it did not seem totally planned, but instead keeping up with the energy of the fans.

Overall the band gave a lively nearly two-hour show consisting of twenty-one songs. While the show wasn’t sold out, the energy in the venue reflected the energy and punch packed into their songs. Perhaps shown best in their song “Sometime Around Midnight”, The Airborne Toxic Event has a beautiful talent for storytelling and building passion throughout their songs that the fans just can’t get enough of.  

Photos By | Joanna Mizak