Turnover took us to the future at a sold-out Tulips

Last year, Turnover came to Dallas to look backward, celebrating a decade of “Peripheral Vision” with a room full of people singing every word like it was scripture. Wednesday night at a sold-out Tulips in Fort Worth, the Virginia Beach outfit came to look forward. The occasion was “Down on Earth,” the band’s new record released in May, and the mood was less nostalgia and more curiosity about where these guys are heading.

She’s Green: A gentle way to open the night

The Minneapolis dream-pop outfit She’s Green had the unenviable task of warming up a midweek crowd, and they did it by refusing to rush anything. Their sound drifts somewhere between Beach House’s velvet swells and Mazzy Star’s narcotic shimmer, with vocalist Zofia Smith swaying around the mic stand like she was scoring a slow breeze. It was the kind of set you close your eyes to truly take it all in.

If you missed them, fix that. Their new single “Mettle” starts as a delicate ’90s prom slow dance before swelling into Boygenius-sized distortion. It lands on the forthcoming album Swallowtail, which is due out on July 9. Smith offered a sincere thank-you to the room — “It’s just really been amazing” — and meant it. A band on the rise, no question.

Narrow Head: The hometown wrecking ball

Then came the chaos. Narrow Head, who formed in Dallas before relocating to Houston, treated this as a homecoming.

“We’re from here, but it’s been a minute since we’ve played here,” frontman Jacob Duarte told the crowd, and the room answered with a moshpit that never quite sat down. Crowd-surfers floated overhead all set. Security earned their paychecks, no doubt.

Sonically, Narrow Head is a glorious contradiction: Trauma Ray’s wall of distortion and stoic coolness, Tripping Daisy’s warped vocal effects, the rubber-band bends of Tom Morello and a little Korn churn in the rhythm section. The peak was “Cool in Motion” off 2020’s “Satisfaction,” which captures the art of pairing beauty with brutality. Sandwiched between She’s Green’s haze and Turnover’s dream-pop, the band’s sheer ferocity felt almost out of place — but nobody was complaining. Exorcising your midweek demons to a screaming rock band is its own kind of therapy.

Turnover: Old hits, new frontiers

Turnover opened not with a crowd-pleaser but with “Nightjar,” a smooth night ride cut from the new record — a clear statement of intent. Five tracks from “Down on Earth” made the set list, with the standout being “I See You and Realize.” It opens on a glassy, New Order–style guitar line, lets frontman Austin Getz drop into a deep croon, then ignites at the end with worthy wailing. It may be the best song the band has written in over a decade, and that translated live on Wednesday night.

That said, “Peripheral Vision” still rules the room. “New Scream,” “Hello Euphoria” and “Cutting My Fingers Off” turned the crowd into a choir, and “Dizzy on the Comedown” — dropped at the midpoint rather than saved for the finale — sent phones into the air and lit up the venue’s disco ball in a swirl of color. Those melodies remain among indie rock’s finest gifts.

What makes Turnover worth loyalty is restless evolution. Similar to Thrice, they push against making the same album twice, drifting from moody emo-punk to jazzy saxophones to surf-tinged guitar plucks, and now to the genre-hopping “Down on Earth.” Where Tame Impala’s reinventions can feel like a slow fade, Turnover’s keep the spark. The setlist leaned almost entirely on the new record and “Peripheral Vision,” skipping earlier records like “Magnolia,” “Altogether” and “Myself in the Way” entirely — a bold edit, but one that kept the night pointed forward.

Getz also took a moment around the set’s midpoint to call out Ticketmaster and Live Nation, championing a more direct relationship between artists and fans.

“Everything we can do to be as direct with y’all, and y’all as direct with us, is important,” he said. “So, thank you all so much.”

The hour-long set flew by. A few more songs would have been welcome, but Turnover clearly wanted their openers to shine. Smart move. Catch this tour while you can — it’s a fun time to be a Turnover fan, and this room knew it.

The Down on Earth tour rolls on through the rest of the year, with a Dallas stop on Nov. 6 at the Bomb Factory alongside Nothing and Trauma Ray. Presale and VIP tickets are available now on the band’s website.