The Runarounds Break the Fourth Wall at Brooklyn Bowl

The 2025 debut season of The Runarounds, on Amazon Prime Video, follows five friends around 18 to 19 years old from Wilmington, N.C. The summer after graduating high school, on a lark, they start a band that gets so good so fast and has so much fun, soon they’re dreaming of escaping their comfy but limiting environs for a career in rock.

The on-screen drama is boilerplate young-adult fare — relationships, family, going to college or getting a job versus following your aspirations. But for the 20-something real-life actor-musicians who portray the titular band in this wish-fulfillment story — singer-guitarists Will Lipton and Axel Ellis, guitarist Jeremy Yun, bassist Jesse Golliher and drummer Zendé Murdock — there’s more at stake. The streamer still hasn’t confirmed or denied a second season, making The Runarounds’ tour, which concluded its winter leg Sunday at Brooklyn Bowl with its second night to a packed house, a prove-it endeavor. (Aestrea, a space-inspired pop-rock project from Atlanta, and rock five-piece Post Sex Nachos, Nashvillians transplanted from Columbia, Mo., opened the show.)

From the jump, it was evident The Runarounds are no strangers to cameras, nor crowds. Harmonies landed, energy never flagged, and transitions between songs were air-tight. The band members moved synchronously, playing off each other and the crowd. Even bandleader Lipton’s banter had just the right amount of four-letter words to keep the kids amped while still dodging an R rating.

At times, it felt like we in the audience were extras in a scene from The Runarounds’ imaginary second season — maybe the episode in which the tour-tested heroes return home to an adoring crowd of family and friends. Amplifying this feeling were onstage cameos from supporting characters like in-house photog and videographer Bender (real name: Marley Aliah) and Sophia (Lilah Pate), Lipton’s character Charlie’s sad-girl-poet paramour and muse.

As I wrote in my feature on the group in the Feb. 26 Scene, the TV show works because the songs do. Translating seamlessly from screen to stage were the melodious “Ghosts,” emotive “Arrythmia” and wistful yet hopeful “Chasing the Good Times,” co-written and audibly influenced by Cage the Elephant’s Brad Schultz. Elsewhere, Phantom Planet and Rooney — early-Aughts pop-rock projects from brothers Jason and Robert Schwartzman, respectively, also no strangers to cameras — came to mind. So did the late Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne; The Runarounds’ spiritual forebear That Thing You Do!, which features songs by Schlesinger, turns 30 this year.

With a set clocking in at an hour and 10 minutes — just the right length for a season finale — The Runarounds didn’t wear out their welcome. That’s good, because hearing the material in rapid succession outside the context of the show exposed its sonic sameness. Also, impeccably coiffed co-frontman Ellis put on a kind of Paul McCartney act, which was cute at first but was wearing thin by the end. 

As always, but especially in the case of a live show this polished, the performance’s purest moments were its least choreographed, like when Murdock (Bez, to viewers), uncorked a breakneck heavy-metal drum solo late in the set. Best of all: “15 Rootbeers,” a bummer-grunge gem sung by bassist Golliher, aka Wyatt on the show. He has earned more screen time should a second season happen, and his future work deserves keeping an eye on regardless.

After the quintet signed off with a workmanlike cover of “Valerie” — the Zutons-penned tune made into a young-millennial neo-soul standard by the late Amy Winehouse — the very young crowd streamed out of the Germantown concert hall with merch in hand and smiles on faces. (“That was the best thing I’ve ever seen!” exclaimed one.) I drove home marinating on TV turning Gen Alpha on to rock ’n’ roll, and whether that’s still a net win if Bezos and company are bankrolling it. In any case, if The Runarounds scores that coveted second season, I’m in.

Features

The Runarounds Go From the Small Screen to the Big Stage

• Charlie Zaillian