Knox Turns Wonder Ballroom Into a Scream-in-Your-Car Singalong (Gallery + Show Review)
Pink and purple light flooded Wonder Ballroom as Knox opened with “4.3 Forty,” and the crowd locked in immediately, ready to sing every word right back at him. The room filled steadily throughout the night, and the vibe stayed warm, loud, and welcoming from the first note to the last.
Emi Grace set the tone as the evening kicked off with a high-energy opening set that was a blast -- think early-2000s Britney Spears if she went pop punk and could absolutely shred on guitar, and you’ve got Emi Grace. She was the perfect opener, and the crowd was ready to go by the time she finished.
Knox, the moniker of singer-songwriter Knox Morris, is on tour for his second album, My Midwest Best. It only dropped a few weeks before this show, but the new tracks are already taking over his top Spotify list with hits like “Go For Broke,” “4.3 Forty,” and “Better Than Me.” It’s his second full-length in 18 months, following 2025’s Going, Going, Gone!, and he shows no sign of slowing down. Imagine if The 1975 went just a little more pop punk, you’d get something close to Knox. Every song is full of earworms that stick with you for hours, made for screaming in your car like nobody’s watching.
His collabs with Bilmuri, Taylor Acorn, and Nightly have helped bring old fans and new ones together, and the crowd at Wonder showed it with day-one fans and people who just found him singing right next to each other. The setlist mixed new and old without losing any energy, with songs like “Sneakers,” “Love Letter,” and “Not the 1975” sitting right alongside the new stuff.
One of my favorite moments came halfway through the set, when Knox stopped to talk with a fan who told him he’d named his son after him. Knox didn’t quite know how to respond, but it was endearing, and the fan was so excited. It was a small, unplanned moment, but it said a lot about how much this music means to the people who show up for it.
“Love Letter” is the song that put Knox on my radar in the first place, so hearing it live was a ton of fun. “Go For Broke” from the new album was exactly what I’d hoped for, too. It has a chorus that just begs to be sung in a crowd, and everyone happily did. Knox also threw in a fun surprise when he pulled out a snippet of 5 Seconds of Summer’s “She Looks So Perfect” to slide into his own “D.N.A.” It fits right in with the pop-leaning pop punk Knox is building, and the room loved every second.
Listening to his recorded music, I’d always put Knox in more of a pop bucket in my head, but seeing him live really brings the pop punk through. His energy on stage is so much fun, and he seems like he’s exactly where he wants to be. He has a great stage presence, in a way where he could make this smaller venue feel more grand and a much larger one feel just as intimate. The sound mixing in the room left a little to be desired, but you could still tell his live vocals rival his recordings. They’re big and bright, and I can absolutely see Knox opening a stadium tour in the not-so-distant future. He is just wrapping up this tour with a few more shows, but I will absolutely be keeping an eye out for his next run.
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