The Pretty Reckless Didn’t Use Raleigh as a Warm-Up

Raleigh was not treated like rehearsal.

On July 10, The Pretty Reckless walked onto the stage at The Ritz and opened the [Dear God World Tour](https://theprettyreckless.com/?utm_source=prettyloudmag&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pretty_reckless_dear_god_raleigh_live_review), their first extended headlining run in years. The following night, they would return to Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte and resume opening for AC/DC.

That made Raleigh the small, loud space between two very different versions of the same band.

Inside the stadium, The Pretty Reckless have enough time to detonate the recognizable songs, win over the people still finding their seats, and leave the stage before the giant bells and cannons arrive. At The Ritz, the whole night belonged to them. The pauses could breathe. The songs could stretch. Taylor Momsen could see the people yelling from the back instead of addressing a distant horizon full of illuminated rectangles.

After a two-year run alongside AC/DC, the band did not return to headlining cautiously. They behaved as though somebody had finally removed the time limit.

The old songs opened the door

The Pretty Reckless could have begun by forcing the new era directly into the room.

Instead, they opened with “Death by Rock and Roll.”

The first stretch of the [15-song set](https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-pretty-reckless/2026/the-ritz-raleigh-nc-73498e0d.html?utm_source=prettyloudmag&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pretty_reckless_dear_god_raleigh_live_review) moved through “Since You’re Gone,” “Follow Me Down,” “Only Love Can Save Me Now,” “Miss Nothing,” and “Sweet Things” before the first Dear God track appeared. It was less a greatest-hits parade than a quick inspection of the machinery: yes, the riffs still drag dirt across the floor; yes, Momsen can still move from a low blues curl into a full-throated roar without sounding like she has changed singers halfway through the line.

“Death by Rock and Roll” was an especially fitting place to restart. The album arrived in 2021, while live music was still emerging from the fog, and its touring life never received the kind of clean beginning most records expect.

In Raleigh, the song no longer sounded like a band announcing its survival.

It sounded like the house lights coming down.

Ben Phillips remained the necessary counterweight to Momsen, letting the guitar sound grimy enough to wobble before snapping back into place. Mark Damon and Jamie Perkins kept the older material heavy without turning every song into a slow march toward the merch table.

“Only Love Can Save Me Now” was one of the early reminders that danger does not always require speed. Given room to expand, its slower weight pushed Momsen’s voice to the front, where it could bruise without fighting the entire band for oxygen.

Dear God entered without asking permission

The new album had been out for exactly two weeks.

Released June 26 through Fearless Records, *[Dear God](https://fearlessrecords.com/releases/dear-god-2/?utm_source=prettyloudmag&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pretty_reckless_dear_god_raleigh_live_review) is the band’s fifth original studio album and, in Momsen’s words, [“the most honest record we’ve ever made”](https://backstageaxxess.com/2026/06/the-pretty-reckless-release-fifth-studio-album-dear-god/?utm_source=prettyloudmag&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pretty_reckless_dear_god_raleigh_live_review)*. She has described the songs as coming from real places without characters or concepts available to absorb the impact for her.

The Pretty Reckless introduced that honesty through “For I Am Death,” “When I Wake Up,” “Love Me,” and “Devil in Disguise (Michelle’s Song),” before returning to the album for the encore.

Five new songs were enough to establish Dear God as the reason for the tour without trapping the audience inside a mandatory first-week listening party.

“For I Am Death” already belongs comfortably among the band’s heavier material. “When I Wake Up” brought the record’s more frantic self-destruction into the room. Momsen has called it the story of [a dream becoming a nightmare](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/the-pretty-reckless-announce-fifth-album-dear-god?utm_source=prettyloudmag&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pretty_reckless_dear_god_raleigh_live_review), the point where excess has already placed the roller coaster on damaged tracks but the person riding it remains convinced they are having a marvelous evening.

Then the set reached “Devil in Disguise.”

The quietest song carried the most weight

Raleigh received the [first live performance of “Devil in Disguise (Michelle’s Song)”](https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-pretty-reckless/2026/the-ritz-raleigh-nc-73498e0d.html?utm_source=prettyloudmag&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pretty_reckless_dear_god_raleigh_live_review).

Written for Momsen’s late friend and former Gossip Girl castmate Michelle Trachtenberg, the song appeared in the middle of the set rather than being wrapped in an encore or presented as a fragile special feature.

That placement changed the temperature of the room.

The Pretty Reckless had spent the evening building force through volume and recognition. “Devil in Disguise” did not try to overpower what came before it. It reduced the distance. In a set full of guitars built to shove against the walls, restraint became the sharpest object available.

Momsen told Kerrang! that the song was [written and recorded on the day it was created](https://www.kerrang.com/the-pretty-reckless-taylor-momsen-dear-god-interview-cover-story-ac-dc-michelle-trachtenberg?utm_source=prettyloudmag&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pretty_reckless_dear_god_raleigh_live_review), while the grief was still moving too quickly to be edited into something more comfortable. She described music as a way to immortalize people, something that survives after the artist and the people they love are gone.

That context makes the song difficult to treat as another entry in the setlist.

It is a memorial being asked to live in public.

The first performance did not need a grand speech or theatrical arrangement to announce its importance. The song carried the uncomfortable intimacy of something written before the writer had time to decide whether anyone else should hear it.

Then the band moved on, because grief rarely stops the schedule.

The hits still knew their job

After the new material opened the wound, “Witches Burn,” “Make Me Wanna Die,” “Heaven Knows,” and “Going to Hell” returned the room to familiar territory.

“Make Me Wanna Die” remains irritatingly resistant to age. More than 15 years after Light Me Up, it still sounds sharp enough to stand beside the new songs without needing nostalgia to hold it upright.

“Heaven Knows” expanded beyond the recorded version, giving Phillips room to stretch the guitar while Momsen worked the room. By “Going to Hell,” she was calling for hands from the sides, the back, and anywhere else someone had managed to wedge a body.

This is the difference between a support slot and a headlining show.

An opener can play the song.

A headliner can wait for the room to answer.

The Pretty Reckless have spent the last several years proving they can occupy a stadium without disappearing inside it. Raleigh showed what happens when that same band is placed close enough for the audience response to come back immediately, still warm.

The encore refused the easy ending

“Going to Hell” could have ended the night without complaint.

It is large, familiar, and practically engineered to send a crowd toward the exit convinced it received the correct amount of rock show. The Pretty Reckless returned instead with “About You,” the fifth and final Dear God song of the evening.

Choosing new material for the encore was the right kind of stubborn.

A tour opener built entirely around reassurance could have closed with the safest possible hit and allowed everyone to leave facing backward. “About You” kept the final word attached to the record that had arrived two weeks earlier.

It also revealed what the Raleigh show was actually doing.

This was not a victory lap through the songs that made The Pretty Reckless successful. It was not a tune-up before the band returned to AC/DC’s stadium machinery the next night. It was the first full attempt to place Dear God beside the catalog and see whether the new songs could survive the comparison.

They did.

Not because they sounded exactly like the older material, but because the band trusted them enough to occupy the center of the set, carry its quietest moment, and take the final bow.

The Pretty Reckless did not spend Raleigh proving they could headline again.

They spent it proving they had something new worth headlining with.

Stream *[Dear God](https://link.theprettyreckless.com/deargod?utm_source=prettyloudmag&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pretty_reckless_dear_god_raleigh_live_review) and find upcoming dates through [The Pretty Reckless’ official website](https://theprettyreckless.com/?utm_source=prettyloudmag&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pretty_reckless_dear_god_raleigh_live_review)*.