The nostalgia pendulum has fully come back around to consider indie sleaze and twee, so maybe Hamilton Leithauser will finally get his due. As lead vocalist for The Walkmen, Leithauser first established himself with dynamic vocal chops and real rock-scene creds — a D.C. native, he helped engineer the Fugazi album Red Medicine during a high school summer job at Inner Ear Records, and in more recent years he’s collaborated with Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij. Leithauser’s songwriting careens between dour belligerence and catharsis: On “Happy Lights” from his 2025 album This Side of the Island, he confesses, “I burned all my friends, and I burned all my weed” as backup singers shout along behind him. On Thursday, his summer tour comes to The Basement East with support from Nashvillian Josh Gilligan, whose mellow, introspective indie rock considers matters of the heart on the 2025 album Party of One.
7 p.m. at The Basement East
1604 Eighth Ave. S.
