Mac DeMarco Wows an Eclectic Mission Ballroom
May 7, 2026Photos: Gerardo Federico
By around 3:30 in the afternoon, three full hours before doors opened at Mission Ballroom, the line for Mac DeMarco was already forming around the building. Groups of friends sat on the curb passing time, talking favorite albums and hoping for certain songs, while others paced around trying to peek through the venue doors every time security moved. What stood out most was how young the crowd was. A huge portion of the audience looked barely old enough to remember when “Salad Days” first came out, which says a lot about the second life Mac’s music has found online. Through TikTok and short-form clips floating around social media, songs like “Chamber of Reflection” and “My Kind of Woman” have reached an entirely new audience that may have never discovered him otherwise. It gave the night an interesting balance, with longtime fans standing next to younger listeners hearing some of these songs live for the very first time.
Once Mac finally shuffled onto the stage, the whole room immediately loosened up. His shows have always felt more like hanging out than watching a polished production, and this night was no different. He bounced between jokes, awkward banter, and genuinely beautiful performances of older songs that the crowd knew word for word. But the biggest anticipation all night was clearly for “Freaking Out the Neighborhood.” You could feel people waiting for those opening guitar chords from halfway through the set onward. When it finally started, the room exploded instantly, probably the loudest and rowdiest the crowd got the entire night. The song already feels chaotic in the best way on record, but live it turns into something even bigger. After the song technically ended, the band kept playing around with the outro, first repeating it normally, then dragging it into a slowed-down version before launching into a ridiculously sped-up rendition that had the entire venue laughing and screaming along. It felt loose and spontaneous in the exact way a Mac DeMarco show is supposed to.
The newer material from “Guitar” fit into the set more naturally than expected. The album leans quieter and more reflective than a lot of his older work, and live, those songs carried even more emotional weight. Instead of trying to force energy into them, Mac let the songs breathe, which actually worked well in contrast with the chaos of some of the older fan favorites. One of the most memorable moments of the night came during “Moonlight on the River,” which has always felt like one of his most immersive and hypnotic songs. The band stretched out the instrumental ending far beyond the album version, giving extra attention to the swirling, psychedelic section that fans clearly adore. Nobody in the crowd seemed interested in rushing to the next song either. People just stood there soaking it in while the guitars echoed around the ballroom.
What made the whole show stick wasn’t just the music itself, but how alive the crowd felt from beginning to end. There was this sense that everyone there understood they were watching an artist who has somehow stayed completely himself while continuing to reach new generations of listeners. Mac DeMarco still has the same weird charm, the same unfiltered stage presence, and the same ability to make a packed venue feel strangely personal. Seeing teenagers scream every lyric beside fans who’ve been listening to him for over a decade was proof that his music has aged in a way very few indie artists’ catalogs do. By the end of the night, as people spilled back out into the Denver streets still talking about the extended jams and setlist highlights, it felt less like a concert and more like a shared experience people were genuinely grateful to be part of.
Bonus Review: Mock Media Warmed Up Mission Ballroom With Weird, Wired Art-Punk Charm
Before Mac DeMarco brought his signature slacker-rock weirdness to Mission Ballroom on May 3, Denver got a proper jolt from Mock Media, the British Columbia art-punk outfit currently riding shotgun on DeMarco’s sold-out U.S. run. The pairing made immediate sense. If Mac’s world lives somewhere between loose-limbed indie charm, offbeat humor, and deceptively sharp musicianship, Mock Media felt like the mischievous cousins crashing through the side door with guitars in hand and a grin that said, “Trust us, this is going somewhere.”
Hailing from North Okanagan, British Columbia, Mock Media took the Mission stage in support of their forthcoming album Rat Bastard, due July 17, 2026, via Mac’s Record Label, with the title track already making the rounds as the band’s latest calling card. Even before the first song had fully settled in, the name of the record felt oddly perfect. Rat Bastard sounds like a joke, a threat, and a garage-band manifesto all at once — which is pretty much the lane Mock Media occupied during their opening set.
The group wasted little time establishing themselves as more than just “the opener.” Guitarists Evan Aasen and Austin Boylan brought a restless energy to the front of the stage, jumping, spinning, and locking into jagged grooves that gave the set its scrappy pulse. Behind them, Bennett Smith kept the whole thing from flying off the rails with sharp, driving drums, while Garnet Aronyk anchored the chaos on bass, giving the band’s art-punk detours enough muscle to land with purpose rather than just noise.
That balance was the key to their appeal. Mock Media’s sound has plenty of oddball DNA, but it never felt like weirdness for weirdness’ sake. Their music moved with a garage-rock looseness, a punk bite, and a funky rhythmic streak that made the crowd lean in rather than check out. The band’s press materials cite influences as wide-ranging as Bruce Springsteen, The Ramones, Bad Brains, and Desmond Dekker, and that range actually tracked live: there were moments of big-hearted rock swagger, flashes of wiry punk tension, and little rhythmic curves that gave the songs a crooked grin.
For a crowd largely gathered to see Mac DeMarco, Mock Media had a tricky assignment. Openers in that slot can either disappear politely into the background or overplay their hand trying to win the room by force. Mock Media did neither. Instead, they came across as a band comfortable in their own strange skin. They were animated without being desperate, funny without turning the set into a bit, and polished just enough to make the rough edges feel intentional.
The title “Rat Bastard” also carried a kind of spiritual overlap with DeMarco’s own universe. It was funky, slightly absurd, and just self-aware enough to avoid taking itself too seriously. That made Mock Media a smart fit for the night. They didn’t try to mimic DeMarco’s sleepy charm or laid-back guitar-pop haze. They brought something sharper and more caffeinated, giving the evening a burst of movement before Mac’s looser, more sun-warped world took over.
By the end of their set, Mock Media had done exactly what a great opening band should do: they expanded the room’s appetite. They gave early arrivals something worth talking about, introduced new material with personality, and set the table without acting like they were merely there to pass time. Mission Ballroom can be a big room to warm up, but Mock Media filled it with enough twitchy charm, guitar-driven momentum, and art-punk mischief to make their set feel like part of the night’s story rather than a preface.
For Denver fans who walked in knowing only Mac DeMarco’s name on the marquee, Mock Media made a strong case that Rat Bastard will be worth keeping an ear on when it drops this summer. Not bad for a bunch of Canadian troublemakers with a funny album title and a whole lot of bite.
