Ruston Kelly‘s latest album Pale, Through the Window, which dropped in mid-September, was a record I was highly anticipating after I had heard the lead single “Waiting to Love You”. After repeated spins over the past few weeks, I’ve found several favorites from the record, “Wayside”, “Me and You”, “Great Wide Open” and the aforementioned track. Def another strong release from Kelly but one that has been slept on my critics – only one site has reviewed it (9/10) as of this post over on the AOTY aggregate site. The songs remain a strong connection to Kelly and, at this point in his life, he’s reached a higher level and found someone to love (from his IG, Kelly recently got engaged backstage at the Opry).

Anyways, I missed at least one of his recent NYC shows when he was touring for The Weakness but I was fortunately able to get to the Bowery Ballroom on October 18, 2025 to catch Kelly on this run. Early on, Kelly noted that his father TK was making likely his only/last appearance on the tour (because he just had to play New York) so it was particularly worthwhile just watching the man watch his son perform.

I was not on assignment so I was taking pics for fun which gave me some space to play with a filter or two. Kelly’s performance covered the breadth of his repertoire and included many audience favorites — a lot of the crowd upfront were singing along and embracing the warmth of his current happiness.

Ruston Kelly Bowery Ballroom 18 October 2025 Setlist:
Great Wide Open
Give Up the Ghost
Paratrooper’s Battlecry
Michael Keaton
Jericho
Cover My Tracks
In the Blue
Radio Cloud
Still
Me and You
Pickleball
Waiting to Love You
Half Past Three
Poison
Mockingbird
Mercury
Rubber
Wayside
The Weakness
Twisted Root
Son of a Highway Daughter

Check out images of Ruston Kelly’s show, along with a video of “Poison” (which apparently isn’t played much and was audience requested) from his Halloween record, below.

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