This past Saturday afternoon, an estimated 60,000 people poured into the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to see the moment’s biggest band from Baltimore.
In the shadow of the Washington Monument, within view of the U.S. Capitol and within potential earshot of the White House, Turnstile took to an ad-hoc stage around 3 p.m., its panels painted in their signature rainbow palette.
A distorted synth line hums out into the crowd as drummer Daniel Fang takes his seat, holds his sticks in the air, and smashes his first stroke of a solo riff. The rest of the band takes the stage, leader sing Brendan Yates closes his eyes and throws up his arms, and with a leap, the hardcore quartet launched into its rollicking anthem “Birds.”
A mosh pit swirls into formation and the entire crowd—teens and twentysomethings, old-head punks, parents with earmuffed kids on their shoulders—starts jumping along, all the way back to that 555-foot-tall obelisk, made of marble from Baltimore no less. (The same as our famous steps.)
For the Baltimoreans in attendance—many identifiable by their Carpet Company gear, Orioles jerseys, and at least one Stavros Halkias tee—this was a familiar sensation. This day’s concert was wrapping Turnstile’s North American tour for their Grammy Award-winning 2025 fourth album, Never Enough, which they kicked off a year and change prior with a surprise show at the Wyman Park Dell in Charles Village.
That free, all-ages gathering was also a benefit concert, with QR codes throughout the venue helping raise nearly $50,000 for local nonprofit Healthcare for the Homeless. This past weekend, the show was cohosted with Human Concern International, supporting humanitarian efforts in in Palestine, Lebanon, and Sudan. At last count, they’ve raised $270,000.
A half hour in, Yates thanked the crowd, and the region. He and Fang grew up halfway between D.C. and Baltimore, attending their earliest concerts around the nation’s capital and were informed by its iconic punk scene.
The hardcore subgenre was born here in the late 1970s and early 1980s, by now legendary bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and Fugazi—which also performed in this same spot 31 years ago, at the time in protest against cuts to local social and welfare programs. In attendance at the Turnstile show was Ian MacKaye, frontman of those latter two bands and founder of seminal hardcore label Dischord Records—a sort of torch-bearing moment of music history.
“We’re so grateful to have been raised by this scene, one that taught us that music not only reflects the artists making it, but the people, and the world, and the suffering, and the joy that surrounds it,” said Yates as the synth of “Sunshower” lilted around him. “Today, we’re here to gather around music, to celebrate humanity. But also to fight for it.”
“So loud enough for the White House to hear,” he continued, his voice rising into a shout, “free Palestine, free Sudan, free Lebanon, and always, always keep it moving.”
Then the band launched into its song of the same name off their 2013 debut album, Step to Rhythm—just one of the many deep cuts they performed on their 19-song, 75-minute set.
Turnstile’s Washington Monument show was a year in the making. In that time, they performed an NPR Tiny Desk, got nominated for five Grammys, performed live duets with Paramore’s Hayley Williams, incited massive mosh pits at Outside Lands and Lollapalooza, released a remix album featuring everyone from DJ Rod Lee and Dan Deacon to Slayyter and Elton John, and made their debut on Saturday Night Live.
On this bluebird October day, Yates crowd surfed in the afternoon sun. Bassist Franz Lyons leapt across the stage and even at one point left it to dance with fans. Guitarists Pat McCrory and Meg Mills shredded their hearts out.
There were other familiar faces: the Abdeldayem brothers of Carpet Company, Justice Tripp of Angel Du$t, famed skate photographer Atiba Jefferson (who shot our October 2025 cover). And what seemed like every photographer from Baltimore, for that matter.
At one point, National Park Service police officers on horseback entered a crowded area within the concert’s barricade, causing a brief commotion, knocking over a few concertgoers, and inciting a few middle fingers.
Our favorite moment was when “Look Out For Me” shifted from its headbanging first half into an ambient Baltimore Club-inspired dance beat. A few lines from The Wire echoed out into the audience. The mosh pits shifted into a slow-motion swirl as the band briefly took off their instruments and soaked it all in.
They wrapped with “T.L.C. (Turnstile Love Connection)” off their 2021 breakthrough album, Glow On. They gave high fives and threw guitar picks and drum sticks out to fans.
As a nearly full moon rose in the sky, just like that Wyman show, the crowd lingered, then slowly dispersed.
Contributing photojournalist J.M. Giordano captured all of the energy—from the barricades to backstage—in his images below.
