Twenty-five years in, Rise Against still play like the stakes are life and death, and on Saturday, March 28, 2026, the Chicago punk institution brought that conviction to a heaving PNE Forum. There is nothing nostalgic about a Rise Against show - frontman Tim McIlrath’s songs about war, injustice and holding the line have only grown more pointed with time - and the band delivered them with the same breakneck urgency that made their name: part rock concert, part righteous rally.
Two support acts warmed the room: the propulsive Speed of Light, and the fierce, fast-rising Destroy Boys, whose scrappy, snarling punk made them a perfect fit for the bill and had the early crowd moving well before the headliner.
Rise Against tore in with “Re-Education (Through Labor),” and the PNE Forum floor became a churning sea of raised fists and crowd-surfers almost instantly. “Give It All,” “Help Is on the Way” and “The Good Left Undone” followed in a relentless rush, McIlrath’s voice - still remarkably intact after all these years - cutting clean over Zach Blair and Joe Principe’s buzzsaw riffs. The newer “Nod,” along with “Ready to Fall” and “Satellite,” proved the band’s fire has not dimmed a degree, sitting shoulder to shoulder with two decades of anthems.
The heart of the night, as it so often is at a Rise Against show, came when everything went quiet. McIlrath stepped out for a stripped-down mid-set of “Hero of War” - his devastating anti-war ballad, which silenced the room - and “Swing Life Away,” turning the Forum into one enormous, tender singalong. It was a reminder that beneath the fury, these songs live or die on melody and heart.
Then the intensity roared back, “Chamber the Cartridge” and a ferocious “Prayer of the Refugee” slamming the main set shut before the band returned for an encore that saved the biggest for last: “Make It Stop (September’s Children),” “Like the Angel,” and the immortal “Savior,” whose final chorus the whole building screamed back loud enough to rattle the rafters. A quarter-century on, Rise Against remain one of the most vital live bands in punk - and Vancouver left hoarse, sweaty and, at least for a night, believing the world might yet be worth fighting for.
