La Dispute No One Was Driving The Car Tour
w/ Flooding, From Indian Lakes
GLC Live at 20 Monroe, Grand Rapids, MI
May 9, 2026
Words + Photos by Nina Tadic
There are plenty of metrics to grade a band’s “success” – but one true litmus test of such success is the reaction from their audience. Regardless of location, time of year, or number of fans that show up – it’s the way the fans in the room react that really tells the story. And on Saturday night at a hometown show in Grand Rapids, La Dispute had an absolutely beautiful crowd.
An hour before doors, there is a line around the block. Teens in arm socks and baggy jeans with zebra-striped, neon hair, moms in Skechers and t-shirts and jeans with their middle school aged children, folks in their 30s and 40s who have been going to shows like this for as long as the teenagers in line have been alive – all chatting, laughing, exchanging stories and names, excited for the night’s festivities.
It goes without saying that La Dispute has always drawn out a cult-like following. What is always worth noting is that this cult-like following is a cult of like-minded, genuine, folks of all different backgrounds that, while very soft-spoken as a majority, let everything go when La Dispute hits the stage.
The crowd at 20 Monroe on Saturday night is a double-edged sword – prior to La Dispute’s start, they are sedate, quiet, observing. And once the band’s set begins? They are wild, intense, vibrant – in a way that is so very rare in the post-COVID era of concert-going. Make no mistake, they are respectful of one another, but they are also completely unafraid to move, scream, shout, push, and jump like their lives depend on it.
When the set starts, under the glow of dark red lights, flowers tied to every mic stand on the stage, and Jordan Dreyer shouting “I shaved my head in the sink” – that’s the end of it. The tone for the night is set, one sentence in. Every person in the room is a live wire – across the barricade is a variety of faces, shouting back every word, nodding their heads to the rhythm, bouncing on their toes, smiling ear to ear the entire time. It is electric.
Following “I Shaved My Head” and “Man With Hands and Ankles Bound,” the band throws it back with a fan favorite off of their second full length album, Wildlife – “The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit.” The rest of the night is a well-arranged mix of the band’s discography, alternating between pieces of the tour’s namesake album [No One Was Driving the Car], and the fan favorites off of each of their other releases.
During slower, more ambient pieces, like “Woman (In Mirror),” the crowd is quiet, still, trance-like in admiration, watching and appreciating every note Chad [Sterenberg], Adam [Vass], and Corey [Stroffolino] play on their guitars. And then on the flip-side, for tracks like “King Park,” the shining stars are drummer Brad Vander Lugt and vocalist Jordan Dreyer who keep the room ablaze.
During “King Park,” it is like being transported to a 2007 basement show – there are three pits open in the crowd, full of folks absolutely pummeling into one another at full force without fail – the room is humid and warm with everyone’s body heat, the crowd reeks of B.O. (a tale as old as time), and any time someone knocks into you, the spot they touch on your arm or shoulder or back comes away wet with their sweat. And while this is going on? No one cares. No one is bothered, or acts angry or annoyed – because every single person is so consumed in the music. Looking around the room, in every direction there are people moving, people yelling every word to a profoundly impactful, nearly-eight-minute-long story of a song, and the cherry on top comes at the moment everyone is waiting for: Jordan Dreyer finishes the lines “felt like the world was collapsing / then they heard him speak:” to which the lights go up, and in this room of over 2,000 people, every person on the floor screams out the responding lines “Can I still get into heaven if I kill myself? / Can I still get into heaven if I kill myself? / Can I ever be forgiven ‘cause I killed that kid? / It was an accident, I swear it wasn’t meant for him! / And if I turn it on me? If I even it out? Can I still get in, or will they send me to hell? / Can I still get into heaven if I kill myself?” and then Jordan finishes the song’s final lines, and the entire room hoots and hollers and cheers. One person is waving a crutch in the air, someone else holding up a sneaker they found on the ground, and it feels like being in a time capsule where a fiery passion for live music knows no time and no bounds.
Vocalist Jordan Dreyer is a man of many words in his songs, but likes to keep it short when speaking directly to his audience – something he banters about all night long. He graciously thanks the crowd for supporting the band, and at some point explains that there are more friends and family members of the band in attendance than is fathomable, which makes the performance even more meaningful. At other moments, he offers only a short tidbit before a certain song (like a tongue-in-cheek mention of the DeVos family before the live debut of “Landlord Calls the Sheriff In”) or a dedication (to family, to friends, to the opening bands: From Indian Lakes and Flooding, to the band’s team behind the scenes, to Steve). He does, however, get out most of his words at once when he reminds fans what has brought us all together: a love of music, a love of live music as an outlet for a disappointing world, and an urge to be surrounded by like-minded individuals who care about the world we live in. “It isn’t up to the Republican party, it isn’t up to the Democratic party, it is up to us. There are more of us than there are of them, and they just don’t want you to know that. We can create a world where there are less people on the living on the street, a world that is safe for everyone, a world that is safe for our trans brothers and sisters, a world that includes a free Palestine, a world where we can all have a better life. We can create that.”
All in all, La Dispute’s hometown show is one that is coated in an air of sheer, unadulterated joy across the board. Even after the band’s encore has finished and the night has ended, everyone in the room is practically buzzing with excitement. Folks laugh and chat, people sprint and jump as they leave the room, and regardless of whether they have seen the band one time or a hundred, every person is impacted and amazed by their performance. The No One Was Driving The Car Tour is just another testament to the lasting power and success of a humble band from Michigan that puts on a damn good performance – every. single. time.
