Jason Newsted and the Chophouse Band in Northampton, MA – July 1, 2026

For over 30 years, former Metallica bass player Jason Newsted has called his personal music studio The Chophouse. To him, The Chophouse is a collective… wherever he is, whoever he’s playing with, that’s The Chophouse Band. For years fans would hear about people he’s played with in The Chophouse. Now, for the first time, he’s taking The Chophouse band on the road. The first show of their first tour took place in Northampton, Massachusetts at the Iron Horse.

With no opener, the band hit the stage promptly at 8 o’clock. Jason explained the mindset of The Chophouse, and said tonight you are in The Chophouse, and you are part of the band. He explained they’ll be playing a wide range of music, that there will be music both heavy, and maybe a little more country. 

A big theme of the night was that they like to play music of their heroes. They played “Rita May” by Bob Dylan, which Jason said he rearranged to the point that you could call it a Dylan/Newsted collaboration. The played “Diamonds and Rust,” with the intro that it would be a blend of the Joan Baez and Judas Priest versions… the band was more Priest, while Jason’s vocals were more Baez. In attendance in the audience was Blue Öyster Cult founder and bass player Joe Bouchard, and Jason called him out before they decided to played this BOC song “Then Came the Last Days of May.”

Mixed in with the songs by their heroes, there were a lot of Chophouse Band originals. At one point, Jason said of all the songs she’s written, he has two favorites: “Blackened,” to which the audience interrupted, and “Blackbird.” “This is the latter of those,” he says. Their style of music varied wildly, but you could call it all rock ‘n’ roll. Some of it was more blues rock, some of it may have been more bluegrass, almost country, while some of it was rocking and heavy.

As the band heads out on tour over the next month, they are playing about 20 shows. The 10 in the middle will be opening up for Blackberry Smoke, but before and after that are these “evening with” shows; very intimate venues, with Jason really taking time to talk and connect with the crowd.

The band played for about 80 minutes, before taking what Jason promised to be – and was – precisely an 11 minute break, returning to rock for another 80 minutes. Fans and attendance certainly got their moneys worth, with nearly 3 hours of music. The current lineup of TCB is a powerhouse. Joining Jason are two guitar players, Jes Farnsworth, who we had seen play with Jason in the Newsted band in 2013, and Humberto Perez. Rounding out the rhythm section was bass player Jimbo Hart and drummer Robert John-Tucker. When the band returned from their intermission, Jimbo was kind enough to let Jason play the base for one song, “Fire,” which really fired the crowd up for the second set.

As the night crept closer to the end, Farnsworth took over lead vocals for a song, with a cover of The Ramones’ “I Just Want to Have Something to Do,” which the band followed up with a punk rock version of “What a Wonderful World.” Jason then took some time to talk about how he’s been able to perform to millions of people all over the world, and got really emotional as he spoke about how lucky he has been, and how lucky we are to live where we do. He spoke about the power of rock music transcending borders, before closing out the set with Neil Young’s “Rocking in the Free World.”

If you have an open mind, and are a longtime fan of Jason, I can’t recommend enough seeing one of these headlining shows. Be aware you are not going to see a Metallica show, or even a Newsted metal show. Jason admitted he knows it’s can’t be tough to listen to songs you don’t know, but he clearly appreciated it. Jason has long had a reputation of always being a man of the people, and just as legends say, he hung around and spoke to everyone in the crowd after the show. He signed every autograph and took every photo.

Jason‘s absence from the music scene over the past decade plus has been noticeable, and it was a thrill to see his return tonight.