Badflower: North American Tour 2026

Written by: Brandii Lyn

(Written for SmokinStrings Magazine)

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Badflower kicked off their North American Tour on February 10th with Point North and Olive Vox, with Andy Darling joining the tour later on March 8th.

At the beginning of the tour, Badflower played a full setlist of 17 songs, but towards the middle of the tour, they dropped down to only performing 13 songs. Singer Josh Katz has opened up about his vocal issues throughout the whole tour. Expressing his irritation at not being able to figure out what is wrong, he has visited many doctors and tried different remedies, but nothing seemed to help.

I went and saw them in Milwaukee at The Sylvee, then in Chicago at The House of Blues, and once again in St Louis at The Pageant. Each night, Badflower came out on stage to their song ‘Number 1’. The band had 4 monitors set up behind them showing visuals on the screen. Some of the visuals would be random internet memes and pictures that went along with the song. In the song ‘Number 1’, the lyrics are, “And fuck Charlie Puth, and his perfect pitch too,” and on the screens were different photos of the singer Charlie Puth throughout the whole song.

During the middle of their 7th song, ‘Let the Band Play’, they did a band solo that then turned into just a drum solo, while the rest of the band went backstage. When the drum solo was over, the rest of the band would come back onstage, and Josh would come back with some type of fruit. This is a known trend with Josh to come on stage with some type of fruit and throw it into the crowd. At the Milwaukee show, Josh came out with a banana and attempted to throw it to the people at the balcony above, where I happened to be standing. He missed by a long shot. Their guitarist, Joey, then got a chance to try to throw a banana at the balcony. He managed to get far enough that the people above didn’t catch it, and it fell to the ground.

For the Chicago show, once again, Josh came out with a banana and talked about his poor throwing skills from the Milwaukee show, and he wanted to attempt to throw a guitar pick to the people in the balcony again. While aiming to throw, he decided to just throw it to the crowd in front of him instead. Joey once again grabbed a banana to see if he could make it to the balcony; this time, the throw was successful.

For the St Louis show, Josh didn’t bring out fruit, but he came out with cough drops and threw them into the crowd. This is the point in each show where he would address his vocal issues and let fans know that he is struggling and that doctors aren't able to figure out what is wrong with him. Each night, his reaction to the story has been different. At the first Milwaukee show, he seemed sick and needed more help singing than he did at the Chicago show. Those two nights, he seemed in high spirits, but for the St Louis show, he seemed more upset and defeated. 

A fan in the front row shouted, “Try tea.” And Josh laughed and said, “Try tea? What do you think I'm new?” Then sat down on the stage and talked about his vocal issues. Through the smiling and joking threw what he was saying, you could tell it was affecting him. Earlier in the show, he mentioned how it was affecting his mental health the most. He also stated that he wanted to smash his guitar out of frustration.

After he talked about his vocal issues, he got up, and the band continued with the rest of the song, ‘Let the Band Play’. Josh jumped down from the stage, climbed the barrier, and jumped into the crowd, which is another normal thing for Josh to do. After crowd surfing, he went back up on stage, and where he normally would grab his guitar and finish playing along with the band, he took the guitar and smashed it onto the stage. 

Towards the end of their set, Josh said this was the part in the show where they leave the stage and pretend like they were done, then come back out for encore. He said, “So this is our last song”, then gave a wink before playing their song ‘Ghost’. When the song finished, they left the stage, and the crowd shouted for an encore. They came back out and played, 'There is no Place Like Home’, ‘London’, and ‘Swinging Hammer’. 

At each venue, for their song ‘Swinging Hammer’, Josh came out into the crowd. For Chicago, he walked towards the back of the venue and climbed on the door of the sound and lighting booth. For Milwaukee and St Louis, he walked into the middle of the crowd, singing along with fans while standing in the crowd with them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVISt8lBT8s

Overall, each show has been incredible. It was emotional, and fun, and as always, entertaining. Badflower always puts on a hell of a show and are never a disappointment to see. Not only is the band incredible, but the fan base and the atmosphere while being in the crowd is wonderful. If you have the chance to go see them, I highly recommend.