by Dave Parsons
The salty Atlantic breeze carried more than just the scent of sea foam and boardwalk fries on Friday night, September 26, 2025, as the Oceans Calling Festival kicked off its third annual celebration of rock, pop, and alternative music against the backdrop of Ocean City, Maryland’s coastline.
Ocean City, Maryland, has hosted families for a century, and with the birth of the Oceans Calling Festival, the town extended its tourist season. Born from the vision of Maryland’s own O.A.R. and boosted by the muscle of C3 Presents, Oceans Calling has grown into one of the East Coast’s defining festivals.
What makes Oceans Calling unique is not just its lineup but its origin story. O.A.R. had long harbored the idea of staging a festival in their home state, one that would fuse music with the area they grew up around. In 2022, the dream nearly died before it began, as the first year was wiped out by a hurricane. That false start could have sunk a lesser project, but in 2023, the festival returned. Those early years taught both organizers and fans the lesson that nature will always have the last word on the shoreline, but community can match it note for note.
By 2024, the event grew as did the town itself, learning to handle the influx of tens of thousands of visitors, rerouting traffic, bolstering police, and welcoming the economic lifeblood that a late-September festival can bring to a beach community. Now in 2025, the festival is no longer an experiment, but an institution in the making. There’s a special kind of magic to a beach festival. It creates an atmosphere that you cannot replicate at fairground venues.
There’s something magical about watching legendary performers, with the ocean to one side and the Boardwalk’s vintage charm on the other. The sound quality is surprisingly great for a beach venue, with changing ocean breezes constantly changing. Friday’s lineup read like a greatest hits compilation of four decades of popular music, all meshing together, allowing artists who might never share a stage elsewhere to come together for an unforgettable weekend.
Izzy Escobar opened the main stage on Friday afternoon, to a surprisingly good number of folk for that early in the day. She blended several different styles together, to a nice reception from the crowd, many of whom were hearing her music for the first time. They seemed genuinely engaged by her songs, and it set the tone for the rest of the day to follow.
BEL was the second act of the day, and the young artist’s approach to live performance was both laid back and professional from the get-go. These early time slots are tough on a young artist wanting to rock a beachfront crowd, but the reality of a 1:00 Friday afternoon time slot is to do more lyrical and dynamic offerings to a crowd who is listening while sunscreen is still being rubbed onto shoulders, and iced coffees abound instead of beers. BEL planted roots with some folks who were now proclaiming a new discovery, and by the end of their set BEL left with more than polite applause.
Next up on the other end of the venue, Letters to Cleo took the stage and instantly transported the crowd back to the 1990s. Kay Hanley’s voice is still capable of the sweet-and-sour combination that made Letters to Cleo successful in the mid-1990s, cutting through the afternoon air with surprising power. Letters to Cleo has always been a band that crowds loved, and the band’s performance here, after years apart, suggests that their best days may not be behind them after all.
One of Oceans Calling’s most distinctive features is its celebrity chef cooking demonstrations. Chef Antonia Lofaso was Friday’s guest. Held as the first act of the day on the alternate Carousel Stage, these demonstrations add an intimate atmosphere where celebrity chefs could interact directly with the audience as they banter back and forth with the host and other invited guests. Quite often, members of bands performing later in the day show up to the demonstration.
This scheduling of cooking demos during the early afternoon hours provides festivalgoers with programming during the long afternoon hours, between opening acts and prime-time headliners, and directs the focus on local seafood and regional ingredients, which reinforces the festival’s identity. It is a great sight to see hundreds of music fans gathered around a cooking stage, with the afternoon sun overhead, and having the same enthusiasm they bring to the shows.
The arrival of the Spin Doctors next turned up the heat of the afternoon schedule, still able to hold a crowd in their palm decades down the road. They played what people wanted to hear, and the sand turned into a dance floor. Their set helped folks forget their troubles and move their bodies, and be happy they were here to witness a seasoned band in this setting.
The beach setting also provided a great backdrop for Fountains of Wayne’s set next, and the inevitable wait to hear Stacy’s Mom, still an iconic hit decades after its release. The band’s sudden reemergence into the concert mix was a welcome addition to this crowd, even if Stacey would be in her 40s now and, of course, her mom in her 60’s. Some songs are timeless and make you travel back to a place and time you like to visit from time to time.
A directly opposite approach came about 200 yards down the beach as +LIVE+ stormed the stage, played like men possessed. They stretched songs into hypnotic jams that showcased how much they like to play together, and like only great rock bands can do. Live has always been a band that thrives on the connection with the audience, and the relationship developed over their hour-long set. When their closing song became an impromptu sing-along, it seemed to include every person in earshot, as it could be heard on the other end of the beach.
That other end of the beach was about to present one of the day’s most unexpected but thoroughly delightful choices. Nelly brought his swagger and proved again that great hip-hop can thrive anywhere. He rolled through hit after hit with the confidence of a man who knows his place, with a voice as smooth and commanding as when he first came on the scene over two decades ago. The mix of the crowd’s ages during Nelly’s set told the story of Oceans Calling’s appeal. There were twenty-somethings discovering these songs for the first time, partying alongside their parents who remembered buying his first CD.
The centerpiece of the evening belonged to O.A.R., the hometown heroes. This was their festival, their dream planted here. They didn’t perform like they were guests. It was like these thousands of people were invited to their backyard, and every song was on repeat on their playlists year-round.
O.A.R. plays a set every day at the festival, with the initial set being just them. They will invite members of other bands on that day’s lineup to join them for some covers, but this night belonged to them and their fans. O.A.R. has always been a band that understands the communal aspect of live music, and in the beach setting, their ability to make massive crowds feel like intimate gatherings reached its full potential.
The vibe of the music changed as The Black Crowes brought their blues-soaked Southern rock to the shore, and it made for a compelling musical set. The beach suddenly felt like a Southern roadhouse. The Black Crowes have always been a band best experienced live, where their talents can fully unfold, and the setting seemed to give them even more room to stretch out and explore their jam side.
Green Day stormed the festival like a hurricane. The audience was primed by a day of first-class entertainment, brought to a climax as Billie Joe Armstrong opened with American Idiot, and they were off and running. Pyro added the punch to the songs the audience knew by heart, and the scene turned the sand into a punk-rock revival. By the end, the crowd wasn’t just applauding, they were roaring, affirming, baptized in sweat and salt.
The festival’s integration with Ocean City’s famous Boardwalk creates a seamless blend of music festival and beach vacation, with attendees able to move easily between the main festival site and the resort town’s restaurants, bars, and attractions, while providing one of the East Coast’s most distinctive festival experiences.
The combination of legendary performers, rising stars, and one incredible natural venue, people spilled onto the boardwalk with sand on their ankles and grins across their faces. Day One had not just been a success, but a foundation for the days to follow. Ocean City for this weekend was more than a beach town. It was the center of the rock universe, on the east coast, and there were two more days to go.
As with any sprawling festival, it is impossible to catch every moment through the lens. While I was able to witness and document the major arcs of Day One, not every band is featured in extended commentary here. Ballyhoo!, The 502s, The Fray, Lenny Kravitz, and CAKE performed overlapping sets that could not be fully covered, or they declined to be photographed. Oceans Calling is a celebration to be seen in person, and even if they all don’t make it to this page, they matter to the whole experience.
Izzy Escobar Photo Album
BEL Photo Album
Letters to Cleo Photo Album
Spin Doctors Photo Album
Fountains of Wayne Photo Album
LIVE Photo Album
Nelly Photo Album
The Black Crowes Photo Album
Green Day Photo Album
Crowd Photo Album
Celebrity Chef’s Photo Album
