Winona Fighter • Homestyle Dinner Rolls • March 3, 2025 • Urban Lounge
Reviewed and Photographed by Sam Howard
Being a modern punk rock fan, we are seeing a wave of up-and-coming new bands to fill this genre. Winona Fighter, a punk band based in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of those bands that is making a lot of noise and should be paid attention to. Having opened for The Offspring in 2023 and playing some of the upcoming Warped Tour dates later this year, Winona Fighter has a very well-deserved punk resume built up to take on the entire punk scene. Going on their headlining tour for their newest album, “My Apologies To The Chef,” they made their stop here in Utah, playing at the Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City.
Homestyle Dinner Rolls
What makes this tour special is that not only are they touring their debut album, but they are bringing along a local band from each state they play in to open for them. For the show in Salt Lake, they brought on Utah’s very own, Homestyle Dinner Rolls. This indie-punk band based in Utah County consists of lead singer/bass player Danny Kawai and lead guitarist/backup vocalist Jake Follette. Having seen this band perform many times at local venues, I can say that they are the staple of rock and roll with their heavy guitar sounds and punk lyrics and themes.
Though they are very witty and can rope in the crowd with jokes and humorous bits, the band puts in the work, and the art that they produce through their sounds should be taken very seriously, as they never fail to make the crowd go crazy. These characteristics are what made Homestyle Dinner Rolls the perfect opener for Winona Fighter.
Taking the stage, instantly hitting the crowd with their high energy, Homestyle Dinner Rolls began to play. Inviting the very sizable crowd to come in close to the stage, setting the tone for how the night was going to go, they opened up with their songs “Honey Almond Blues” and “A Bit Too Heavy.” Once the show got started, there was no slowing down for the Urban Lounge. To get the crowd more involved with their set, they threw in some covers of very well-known songs in their set.
The first cover was “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” by My Chemical Romance; every single person in the crowd sang this song with their hearts and souls. They also played a new unreleased song called “Worth a Shot,” in which they used this song to announce their debut album to be released later this year. Ending with this song and an exciting announcement, they went on to play their next cover by playing a little bit of “American Idiot” by Green Day.
The crowd was officially hooked on Homestyle Dinner Rolls. There wasn’t a second of a song where the crowd wasn’t headbanging or jumping. The band’s stage presence was so big and strong that it could fill up an entire arena. The drummer rocked so hard that his cymbals were flying off his kit. The guitarist is shredding his solos and holding out his guitar to the crowd to strum while he makes the chord shapes. They went into their third solo of the night, “Good Times Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin, and absolutely killed it. With the end of their set coming up quickly, they played their hearts out, finally ending with their song “Always,” as well as their final cover of the night, “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath. Now that the crowd was buzzing with excitement, they were ready for Winona Fighter to take the stage.
Winona Fighter
Winona Fighter took the stage by storm, opening with their song “You Look Like A Drunk Phoebe Bridgers,” with the crowd screaming every lyric. Addressing the crowd, Coco (singer) talked about their debut album, “My Apologies To The Chef.” She went on to talk about how they recorded the whole thing in their garage and how great the experience was. Before proceeding with the set, she also talked about the vibes of Salt Lake City.
“I think Salt Lake City is a little underrated. The vibes are real nice.” Coco went on to say to the roaring crowd, to which they proceeded to play every single song on their album. The set was very high-energy and powerful. With some political themes and a punk attitude, Winona Fighter had the whole building jumping. Each song had its own emotion, and the crowd responded perfectly to each and every song. From scream singing parts of songs where the singer held out the microphone to the crowd, to turning the venue upside down with their movement.
The band made it very clear that moshing was very appropriate during the show, and once the singer gave permission to mosh, there was no stopping the crowd. At one point, the band appointed two people in the crowd to be “pit masters,” in which they made sure every single person there would be moshing. The two that were appointed the title began a circle pit, and it definitely made the whole place rumble.
Nearing the end of the set, they played their song called “Johnny’s Dead,” in which the singer talked about how it’s hard not to get emotional when playing this song live. Going into the song, the lyrics and the way it was performed on stage made it clear that this was a very emotional song. The passion of the words being sung, both from the stage and the crowd, mixed with the attitude of the instruments being played by the rest of the band, made this one of the most soulful experiences of the night.
Ending their set with their song “HAMMS IN A GLASS” the crowd was desperate for more. It didn’t take long for the band to come back out to the roaring demand of an encore, and they delivered. They ended the night by playing a cover of “Sabotage” by Beastie Boys. This was a nice little cherry to top off their amazing set.
Seeing Winona Fighter on a headline tour made me just want more headlines from this band. I would really love to see them back here playing for bigger and louder crowds at venues like the Depot or even the Complex. Their debut album, released earlier this year, is the perfect collection of songs for this band to blow up in the punk scene, and I cannot wait to see them come back to Utah.
