Photos | Review: Mammoth Shows DC “The End” is a Glorious Beginning

Wolfgang Van Halen of Mammoth plays The Fillmore Silver Spring in Silver Spring, MD, during “The End” Tour on Tuesday, November 11th.

Return to Dust at The Fillmore Silver Spring

Who: “The End” Tour: Mammoth, Myles Kennedy, Return to Dust

Where: The Fillmore Silver Spring, Silver Spring, MD

When: November 11, 2025

On a chilly Tuesday evening in Silver Spring, just one mile north of the Maryland/DC border, a packed room of about 2,000 people joined together to do one thing: let Mammoth lead them on a quest to escape “The End”!

Return to Dust

Starting the night off, California-based Return to Dust transported the audience to the early 1990s! The long-haired foursome caught the room’s attention quick with headbangers “Black Road” and “Shine.” Evoking the feeling of Alice in Chains in their Facelift era, their latest single “New Religion” showed their heaviest riffs yet!

Dual lead singers Matty Bielawski (rhythm guitar) and Graham Stanush (bass) harmonized with grunge-era howls. Lead guitarist Sebastian Gonzalez whipped back and forth around Stage Right as he shredded up every solo. On the drums, London Hudson was a fury of flying sticks and hair in equal measure, barely visible behind the drum set!

Myles Kennedy

Next up was… Myles Kennedy and his solo band? Really? Having headlined several gigs in the DC/Baltimore area on his own, with Alter Bridge, and with Slash & the Conspirators, the crowd treated the established singer and lead guitarist as though he was still the headliner! Surprising no one, Kennedy kept true to his humble nature as he thanked Mammoth for having them on their tour, joking that they were ”so excited to be the warm-up dish!”

Oddly enough, “The End” Tour marks the final leg of MK & Co.’s tour cycle in support of 2024’s The Art of Letting Go. Opening with the album’s title track, the trio (including Tim Tournier on bass and Zia Uddin on drums) made saying goodbye to this era a little easier for everyone in attendance. Kennedy’s infectious-yet-grounded positivity came through in every chorus and every guitar solo, as his abundance of love for his decades-long vocation is evidently not stopping anytime soon.

Mammoth

While ”The End” Tour marked an end for some, the headliner was only just beginning! Mammoth, the brainchild of Wolf Van Halen in-studio, once again started a new era of touring with his trusted live band to bring his self-made songs to life on-stage. Returning for a third round on the road, rhythm guitarists Frank Sidoris and Jon Jourdan, bassist Ronnie Ficarro, and drummer Garrett Whitlock jumped with Wolf right into the latest album’s opener, ”One of a Kind.”

“It’s like we’re trying to stuff a fuckin’ arena into a club!” Never a stranger to theatrics, Mammoth’s leader orchestrated a stage production that matched the ever-heightening storytelling mechanics in his music videos! From ceiling to floor, the back of the stage was flooded with light from an arena-worthy LED screen, displaying hand-animated motion graphics by artist Wayne Joyner. Proudly, Wolf shouted out Joyner’s work mid-set, making a clear point to note the art wasn’t some “generative AI bullshit — because that shit SUCKS!”

In an area that felt the brunt of the recent record-length government shutdown, such care for human-made detail was exactly why every bit of space left in The Fillmore was filled with people! The cinematic visuals and carefully-crafted music was unlike any Mammoth tour prior, offering concertgoers a much-needed escape from the growing epicenter of dystopia located just a few miles south of the venue.

Appropriately, this need for human connection in escapism hit its climax in “Distance.” Here, Wolf exchanged a full band opening for a solo acoustic moment, and traded flashy animations for the well-worn VHS home movies the Van Halens took during Wolf’s childhood. Even when the rest of the band joined during the second verse, the combo left the entire room in tears.

Finally, wrapping up the night with the strongest whiplash-enducers of the set (“I Really Wanna” and “Don’t Back Down”), no other song could finish the encore. At last, “The End” truly marked the ending of a glorious heavy-metal evening!

Follow Mammoth on social media and music streaming platforms:

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Follow Myles Kennedy :

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Follow Return to Dust:

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Post by Elizabeth Owens

Are you going to see Mammoth on the next leg of their US tour? Comment below!