Thursday at NON-COMMvention 2025 kept the momentum going at WXPN with a full day of live music.

Things kicked off at noon with inventive, loop-heavy sounds from Tune-Yards and the lush harmonies of Joseph. From there, the energy built steadily into the evening, as a powerhouse lineup took the stage at World Cafe Live.

Every performance streamed live on XPN.org, with set-by-set coverage and updates throughout the day, giving listeners a front-row view as the music unfolded.

Joseph

It’s been just over a decade since siblings Natalie, Allison, and Meegan Closner began making folk-infused rock music together under the name Joseph. This year wasn’t the band’s first appearance at the NON-COMMvention — they were here in 2016 for a showcase set and a backstage video session — but it was their first appearance as a duo. In 2014, the siblings announced the news that Allison was amicably parting ways with the band; Natalie and Meegan planned to move forward writing songs as a duo, and they showed off their progress at today’s NON-COMM Free at Noon at World Cafe Live. Two unreleased cuts were performed, “Bye and Bye” and “Closer 2 Me,” while they started off their performance with the soaring harmony-driven anthem “White Flag” from their 2014 debut I’m Alone, No You’re Not and closed with “Green Eyes” from their third studio album Good Luck, Kid.

Tune-Yards

Another artist that’s been honing their craft for a decade-plus, Tune-Yards gave a mesmerizing performance at World Cafe Live’s Music Hall stage for NON-COMM. Over the years, the band has taken form as a solo pursuit by vocalist and composer Merrill Garbus, and a sprawling multi-player band, though for the past decade, it’s been Garbus multi-instrumentalist Nate Brenner as the core duo holding it down. Tune-Yards played in duo form today, showing off Better Dreaming, the sixth Tune-Yards album, due out next week on 4AD. The bumping single “Limelight” was a slick set-closer, but a throwback to Nikki Nack and “Water Fountain” made it in the setlist as well, to the delight of longtime fans.

Orla Gartland

Irish/English singer-songwriter Orla Gartland is a force of nature. Opening the evening show on the PRX stage, she roared and rocked out, danced with her band (and crowd) and gave the room a taste of the live energy that her album Everybody Needs A Hero just begins to hint at. She also shouted out the radio support that’s given her a leg up in North America, and reminded them to keep playing her closing song, the infectious “Little Chaos.”

Orla Gartland – NonComm 25

Kashus Culpepper

A rising force in the Americana music world, guitarist Kashus Culpepper delivered a smoky set of blues-infused soul to the NPR Music stage at NON-COMM Thursday night. Playing an acoustic guitar seated, and flanked by a keyboardist and guitarist, Culpepper has released a stirring array of singles over the past year, including his most recent, “Man of His Word,” which he played for the Thursday crowd, along with a cover of “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers and yet-to-be-released songs.

Kashus Culpepper – NonComm 25

Personal Trainer

If Orla Gartland closed her set with “Little Chaos,” the band to take the Lounge Stage at World Cafe Live after her brought a lot of chaos to NON-COMM. Personal Trainer is a new band from Amsterdam, and they were kinetic and unhinged — lead singer Willem Smit screamed, flailed, got in the crowd’s face, and barely refrained from knocking over all the gear surrounding him, while his bandmates mixed it up between guitar, saxophone, keys, and rock and roll moves. Musically, it was noisy, but full of accessible rhythms — one could pick out notes of The Fall, Talking Heads, Dehd and more in their fierce four-song performance.

Personal Trainer – NonComm 25

Bartees Strange

It’s been another big year for XPN favorite Bartees Strange. His third LP Horror was released this spring to critical acclaim, he talked about the record indepth on World Cafe, and he played a knockout Philly gig at The Foundry. Keeping the momentum going, he and his band rocked a packed house in World Cafe Live’s music hall at NON-COMM. Mixing up songs from Horror (“Lie 95” was a standout) and its predecessor Farm to Table (“Heavy Heart” always hits), the energy was high, all the way through a closing performance of his first public radio hit “Boomer.”

Daniel Donato

As the night rolled on, Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country took the stage at NON-COMM, and if the band name didn’t clue you in on what to expect, it was clear from the outset: cowboy hats and knotted bandanas, upright bass, hints of Gram Parsons, George Jones, and 70s psychedelia. In the middle of Donato’s set, between “Broadside Ballad” and “Another Dimension,” he and the band embarked on a freewheeling jam that might have been an interlude and might have been the beginnings of a new song all its own.

Daniel Donato – NonComm 25

Counting Crows

Adam Duritz and Counting Crows were counting down the moments till midnight on Thursday, when their latest album, Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets, would be out in the world. It’s a compendium of an EP series the band has been rolling out since the COVID lockdown era, and the Crows celebrated its release with the radio pros and music lovers at NON-COMM, opening the set with the dramatic build of “Spaceman In Tulsa” and dropped the snappy singalong “With Love, From A-Z” and the pensive ballad “Colorblind” in the center. For the rest of their time onstage, it was a hit parade, from “Rain King” to “Round Here” to “A Long December.” By the time they hit the closing “Hanginaround,” the convention was absolutely locked in, so much that one could turn to their left and see Bartees Strange and his band rocking out and singing along, shoulder-to-shoulder.

The Barr Brothers: “Queens of the Breakers” (World Cafe Version)