Wednesday speaks for the people on the fringes at King of Clubs

These are increasingly challenging economic times, with an unjust war in the Middle East sending the cost of gas soaring at a point when countless American families are already struggling under the weight of record high prices at the grocery store.

Of course, the reality that many in the United States are just one missed paycheck from devastation is nothing new to large swaths of the country – particularly the types centered in the songs crafted by Wednesday, a five-piece out of Asheville, North Carolina, which delivered a towering, 75-minute performance at a sold-out King of Clubs on Monday.

Time and again in the band’s songs, singer/guitarist Karly Hartzman displayed her knack for giving three-dimensional life to those out-of-sight folks who are often as much a victim of circumstance as they are their own poor choices. These are the kinds of hard-luck people who could have emerged from the pages of Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff, including the brothers in “Quarry,” whose scoliosis served as an outward sign of the weight life had extended on the pair, and the local woman in “Bitter Everyday,” who innocently serenaded passersby and later turned up on a poster stapled to a telephone pole, having killed a man and abandoned his body on the side of the road.

As a songwriter, Hartzman has much in common with Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers, who visited Stuart’s Opera House in nearby Nelsonville over the weekend, and who has a similar fascination with detailing the rot existent beneath the veneer. As a result, Hartzman often centers her attentions on those forgotten types who “wound up here by holding on,” as she put it on one tune, and who dwell in decaying rural environs where pitbull puppies relieve themselves on apartment balconies, overdoses take place in Planet Fitness parking lots, and middle schoolers pedal home from parties drunk on Four Loko. 

Hartzman and Wednesday explore these surroundings via a more expansive vision of Southern rock, their take bringing together a tangle of influences that stretches from punk and country to ’90s grunge – a diverse sprawl that frequently collides within the same song. Witness “Pick Up That Knife,” from the 2025 album Bleeds, which alternated deeply melodic, corn-syrup-sweet turns with metallic passages that churned like rebar being fed through an industrial garbage disposal. As the song reached its peak, Hartzman repeated the line “they’ll meet you outside” a dozen times, her voice building from lilting to a full-on howl that left her doubled over at the waist.

Slide guitarist Xandy Chelmis and guitarist Jake “Spyder” Pugh, who stepped in for studio guitarist MJ Lenderman, proved welcome sparring partners, cranking the distortion in these noisier moments and then pulling back to help Hartzman uncover the tenderness in songs such as “How Can You Live If You Can’t Love How Can You If You Do” and “Elderberry Wine,” a sun-kissed, slightly twangy turn that read in part as a reflection on the importance of holding to one’s roots amid the trappings of fame.

These musical swings were further abetted by bassist Ethan Baechtold and drummer Alan Miller, who helped control the pacing whether the collective was thrashing its way through 90-second punk exorcisms (“Wasp”), ramping up the melodrama in a Gary Stewart cover (a torrential “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)”), or easing off slightly on the gas to highlight the desperation in Hartzman’s words (“Wound Up Here (By Holdin On),” both slower and more menacing here than on record).

In general, though, moments of relative serenity were rare, with the musicians embracing their noisier tendencies in a way that suited their surroundings. “I’ve never felt more like a rock band,” Hartzman said mid-set while taking in the skull-encrusted King of Clubs setting. “This venue’s branding is hard as fuck.” 

The reasons for leaning on rage extended far beyond these immediate surroundings, however, with Hartzman introducing the closing one-two punch of “Bull Believer” and “Wasp” by sharing with the audience those sentiments she said she has kept at front of mind in screaming her way through these dual rippers for the duration of the band’s current tour, including America’s complicity in multiple foreign genocides and the migrant purge now being waged by masked federal agents across the United States. 

“Fuck ICE,” said Hartzman, who then joined her Wednesday bandmates in a cathartic, nearly 10-minute “Bull Believer,” which found her acknowledging the hopelessness of this moment (“No fight left to give”) while simultaneously refusing to cede further ground.

In introducing the song, Hartzman also noted that she was from a state, North Carolina, that is often deemed more conservative. And yet, she has remained in place – a decision the musician related to her need to stay and fight for those who are unable to fight for themselves. Some less fortunate souls might have ended up where they are by simply holding on, Hartzman’s stance seemed to suggest. Now it’s on the rest of us to push back and help them find steady enough ground that they’re finally able to relax this grip.