A rock band, Everclear, performs on a dark stage illuminated by blue and green lighting. A large, dark banner behind the band has the word "Everclear" written across it in a bright, light green script font. Four band members are visible: a bassist on the left, a drummer seated in the center, a guitarist/vocalist in the center-right, and another guitarist/vocalist further right. Silhouettes of the audience are visible in the foreground.
Everclear Credit: Josh Bradley

“Party with us? The silver guys?” Art Alexakis replied to a yelling fan on Wednesday night at downtown Clearwater’s Bilheimer Capitol Theatre. “That sounds like such a bummer.”

The main creative force behind Everclear is no stranger to bummers, either. Addiction as a teenager, a semi-recent MS diagnosis, four marriages (with the fourth time seemingly being the charm), and most recently, nearly losing his home in this year’s Pasadena fires. He addressed those topics during his banter at his first Clearwater show in four years, and yet with a third of his songs being semi-autobiographical and about some not-so-great times, Alexakis has managed to find a healthy, reasonable way of allowing his adversities to be a part of his life, without letting them define who he is.

The 30th anniversary of when his alt-rock project’s name started making its way into American households—upon the release of sophomore album Sparkle and Fade—is being celebrated this year, with the plan being to perform the record in its entirety, and a few hits mixed in. Let’s be real: It’s a 42-minute album, and even with said extra songs mixed in, just under an hour and a half goes by really fast with Everclear circa 2025 in the room. And as you can imagine, the tour is probably the least flashy ‘90s nostalgia gig on the road right now.

Appropriately, Everclear has never been much of a visual spectacle live. Sure, ‘90s kids can have their neon, corporate butt-pop-rock Sugar Rays and explosive-firing Green Days. But when Alexakis hit the stage around 9:30 on Wednesday night, thus began another life story-included therapy session, backed by a black curtain with the band’s current, green logo on it.

From opening track “Electra Made Me Blind” until a quick tease of “Santa Monica,” Alexakis, rocking a black fedora, button-down shirt, and Converse, wielded a black Les Paul knockoff, which he later revealed was one of the very first guitars he ever owned.

“It was $800, which today, is cheap for a fucking Les Paul,” he recalled.

By the time Alexakis got to “Strawberry”—which he explained was centered around a bad dream he had about relapsing following five years of sobriety—he had swapped out for an authentic, gold top Les Paul.

A close-up photograph of Art Alexakis of Everclear performing on a dark stage. He is wearing a black button-down shirt, a black fedora, and glasses. His arms are visibly covered in tattoos. He is playing an orange/light brown hollow-body electric guitar and singing into a microphone on a stand. In the background to the left, parts of a drum kit are visible, including two clear, bright green-rimmed cymbal shields.
Credit: Josh Bradley

Not only was there no sign of sleepy replication anywhere in the set, but Alexakis is still in great voice (despite a little bit of transposition here and there, which makes for a better rendition sometimes anyway) and you’d think that the current band has been together for all this time. The truth is that co-founding bassist Craig Montoya and classic-lineup drummer Greg Eklund are long gone. Montoya plays in an Iron Maiden tribute band these days, and Eklund is a boy-dad Omaha transplant, who bangs the cans for Storm Large of Pink Martini. Talk about a shift in style.

Similarly to some tracks on the album, there was no break of silence between certain songs. Alexakis and Nolan’s style of segueing into another song almost mirrors Bruce Springsteen and Max Weinberg’s — one long note at the end, a count-in of some sort, and boom: It’s a different song in a different key. Take “The Twistinside,” for instance. The track about needing to grow up faded into “Her Brand New Skin,” tackling the feelings of being skeptical about a newly cleaned-up ex with booming bass work from Freddy Herrera.

Look: We love an album birthday party, but this tour is far from a die-hard’s wet dream, and more of a blast-to-the-past lesson in how to make an epic second album. Other than a few cuts from So Much for the Afterglow (which could be next in line for a 30th anniversary tour) and the impossible-level try-not-to-cry-challenge that was “Wonderful” from Songs From an American Movie, Vol. One: Learning How to Smile, the only eyebrow-raiser was Alexakis reminiscing about his influences.

A “Crazy Train” riff (which every live music scene will probably hear at least once a week for the next year. RIP Ozzy) reminded him that the likes of Black Sabbath and Cheap Trick were his bag as a kid, and a rendition of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” came with that sentiment. Scott Lucas of Local H—the Illinois-based post-grunge outfit that absolutely rocked its opening set an hour prior—even came back out to take on Robert Plant’s difficult vocals so Alexakis could give his pipes a break and strum his Les Paul.

Hours before the long-awaited “Santa Monica” finale, Detroit-proud rock collective Sponge kicked things off at 7:30 on the dot. And while their two-minute long, foresty entrance music felt like overkill for a band with an aura—and simplistic, repetitive lighting—that gave off Thursday night, stationary bar-band vibes, the group has gone over well enough with Alexakis and company on their fabled “Summerland” tours in the past. Who else do you get to warm up a sold-out room of broken millennials and Gen-X’ers?

And like them or not, who is anyone to question him about who he selects as openers? After all he’s been through, Alexakis still creates and interacts so well with the fans that got him to where he is (like pacing the foot of the stage meeting non-VIPs at the end of the show). Let’s just let him have this one.

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This article appears in Oct. 9-15, 2025.

Josh Bradley is Creative Loafing Tampa's resident live music freak. He started freelancing with the paper in 2020 at the age of 18, and has since covered, announced, and previewed numerous live shows in...