Collected by both music lovers and those who appreciate a cool magazine cover, Rolling Stone has shaped mainstream perception of rock music for close to sixty years. Their “Gather No Moss” tour continues this venture, advertised to showcase the “best of what’s next.” With only four stops, “Gather No Moss” spotlights a select number of both up-and-coming artists and hand-picked headliners.
But while the tour promises rock history in the making, it kicked off with an artist better known for bending the genre. That opener was 28-year-old Michael Gordon (better known as Mk.gee), an artist whose music, persona and performance style are all defined by their refusal to be easily defined.
From the moment he took the stage on July 26th, Gordon made one thing clear: neither genre nor convention would have any say in how this night would unfold.
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Before Mk.gee appeared, producers SEES00000 and Black Noi$e set the tone with immersive, genre-blurring sets that leaned more into mood and texture than structure. Their performances were an eclectic introduction that set the tone for the night.
The openers may have established the energy, but when Mk.gee took the stage, that energy shifted. While he may have given the crowd at the sold-out Fillmore Auditorium exactly what they were hoping for, he delivered a performance that was anything but predictable.
The set included most of the tracks from his first full-length album, Two Star and the Dream Police. Gordon considers Two Star to be his debut album, and the world tends to agree. At the very least, this record was the one that put him on the map in regard to mainstream recognition, landing him in no less than ten “best album of 2024” lists, one “best album of the first half of the decade” list and one episode of The Bear.
His “Gather No Moss” set not only proved this virtuosic skill: it showed that Mk.gee pretty much does everything like nobody else.
His set was a display of extremes. Joined by fellow guitarist Andrew Aged and multi-instrumentalist Zack Sekoff, Mk.gee performed a 13-track set (15, counting his encore) that never stood still. The atmosphere was constantly changing, from heavy fog and quiet yearning to bright flashing lights and angry, cacophonous noise. Ballads backed by red light shape-shifted into guitar-heavy interludes spotlighting his supporting musicians that bled into pounding crowd favorites, all with no indication of what was coming next.
Mk.gee was not only bending the conventions of rock. He was skirting genre altogether.
His refusal to commit to a genre wasn’t the only factor that made music school dropout Mike Gordon’s performance unconventional. His setlist began with “ROCKMAN,” the second single from Two Star that later reappeared as the final track for his encore. “ROCKMAN” was followed by other standouts from the album, each ebbing and flowing through varying tempos and volumes: upbeat bangers like “Candy,” dreamy gaze hits like “Are You Looking Up?” and heavy hitter thought-provokers like “New Low.”
What’s more, as his set wound down, he played hype track “DNM,” three times in a row, each time assuring his audience, “It’s not happening. It’s not gonna happen again,” (a sentiment no one really believed, seeing as he looped the song 12 times at his October Minneapolis performance).
In fact, it was Mk.gee’s down-to-earth stage presence that solidified his brilliance. Here was a man ducked behind his hair, face hidden by equal parts blinding backlight and heavy fog, asking the crowd how they’re really feeling between bleeding-heart guitar riffs. Here was a man whose widely recognized talent has not overshadowed his late-twenties boyhood — who still trolls his audience, who still sings about girls and makes up phrases like “every now and every then,” who still resists celebrity stardom enough to feel accessible and connected.
In other words, if Gather No Moss promises to show what the future of rock history could look like, they picked the perfect guy for the job: with all the talent and charisma of your dad’s favorite idols and the fuck-if-I-care realness at the heart of true rockers.
As the tour continues through October with performances from The Beaches, Wet Leg and MJ Lenderman, it will be built on the foundation of this show and its outright refusal to play by the rules. If pure technical skill and unflinching honesty are the future of rock and roll, rest assured we’re in good hands.
All photography by Chip Litherland for Rolling Stone.