Live from the Beacon Theater in New York City, Jack Antonoff formed a supergroup with Hayley Williams. Their headlining performance for Rolling Stone’s Musicians on Musicians 2025 was backed by Bleachers, the band Antonoff has led for the past decade. During the event, Williams remarked that she loved the band from the first time she heard “I Wanna Get Better,” though it made sense given her adoration for the other bands Antonoff has performed in. For one night only, their shared respect and yearning for catharsis converged.
Williams and Antonoff swapped songs back and forth for the duration of the performance, offering backing vocals where needed, or lingering with perceptive adoration in other moments. The set kicked off with “Mirtazapine,” a cut from the Paramore frontwoman’s latest studio album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, about the titular antidepressant. They traded off for “Modern Girl,” from Bleachers’ self-titled album. “Change my meds, change the flight,” Antonoff sang. “Bodies on, bodies wild.”
The set continued with Williams’ first live performances of “Kill Me” and “Love Me Different,” both from Ego Death. In between these songs, Bleachers flashed back to 2017 with “Nothing Is U” — a track from their second studio album, Gone Now — which they haven’t performed live in three years.
In the final stretch of their joint performance, Williams and Antonoff ramped up with a two-song grand finale combo that added an evident edge of exclusivity to the appearance. Bleachers surprised the audience with “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call,” their sobering ballad about silence and solitude that plunged deeper into melancholy with the addition of Williams’ haunting harmonies.
But the night couldn’t end on such a heavy note — at least not sonically. With Bleachers blazing on their instruments, Williams delivered the debut performance of “Good Ol’ Days,” a bonus track from Ego Death that was released on streaming services during the event. Unless they snuck out to take a listen, it was the first time most everyone in the room heard the song.
“We could sneak around like we’re on tour/Even if that’s all you want me for, for/You could call me Miss Paramour,” Williams sang, dancing around the stage in chic sunglasses to the groove of the thudding percussion and plucky strings. In the song, she sings about getting closer to a version of that release with each new song. “Have to get it out of my system/Don’t like songs about you, don’t listen,” she instructs on the second verse. “If I’m being honest, I’m almost done/Not easy letting go of the one.”
During their conversation for the Musicians on Musicians cover, Antonoff asked Williams, “What’s the first song you wrote where you were like, ‘If you crack me open, this is the music that would shoot out?’” For Williams, those moments came in large waves during the making of Ego Death. “I would write the lyrics and feel really uncomfortable about it, but then the processing all happened a lot quicker for me this time around,” she said. “I would look back at three weeks ago and be like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s what that meant.’”
She added: “I watch what you do and you’re involved in so many different things. I always can feel the same heartbeat in it. I stay so proud watching you because I know a lot about where you came from and what that feels like, and I can still see it in every move that you make. I think that’s what I’m looking for all over the place in our industry.”
