Slightly Stoopid – Road Trippin’ Summer Tour 2026
Ovation Hall, Ocean Casino Resort — Atlantic City, NJ — August 14, 2026
With The Elovaters and DENM
When Slightly Stoopid headlined at the Ocean Casino and Resort on August 14th in Atlantic City, the result was a collision of coastal California and the Jersey Shore that felt like it should have been played on the beach next to a bonfire. The Road Trippin’ Summer Tour, which started in late July, rolled through the Mid-west and Red Rocks before landing on the east coast for back-to-back shows.
Early Friday evening, the casino lobby is overtaken by a mob wearing board shorts and holding Coronas, a loud frenzy of excited surf rockers and blonde baddies making their way to the newly renovated Ovation Hall. As the lights dim at seven o’clock, the crowd applauds while the first supporting act comes out on stage.
DENM, the stage name of Santa Barbara songwriter and producer Mac Montgomery, opens with a set that bridges Sublime’s grit and Dirty Heads’ glossy reggae-rock. Backed by guitar, bass, sax, and drums, tracks like “My Wave” and “Califas” carried through the cavernous venue and into the corridors selling merch. Montgomery produced SOJA’s Beauty in the Silence, which took Best Reggae Album at the 2022 Grammys, and he has been doing this full-time for close to fifteen years. He’s slowly earned the Sublime comparisons that follow him around.
“We go to a lot of surf-rock shows and DENM is one of the nicest and most talented guys around,” says Tom Pendigrass, a contractor visiting AC with his family. “He didn’t hesitate to sign my daughter’s hoodie. I hope he goes far.”
The Elovaters follow, and the Boston six-piece continues to validate the attention that has surrounded them since Defy Gravity topped the Billboard Reggae chart in 2018. Lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Jackson Wetherbee sings with the mellifluous voice of an angel, while lead guitarist John Alves – aka Blaze – weaves surf-tinged lines throughout. The rhythm section keeps things loose but not sloppy, and the drummer gives the arrangements a layered quality.
Having seen these guys several times now, it’s no wonder that they are getting pulled onto major tours like Road Trippin’; anywhere the Elovaters go the crowd goes crazy as they play hit after hit with precision and fun energy.
Slightly Stoopid’s founding members, Miles Doughty and Kyle McDonald, take the stage shortly after 9 p.m., opening with “Bandelero” under the deafening cheers of their loyal fans, and proceed through a long set that draws from across their catalog. An early section stands out: “Till It Gets Wet” flows into a “Trying to Conquer Me” > “2 AM” > “No Cocaine” segue that immediately defines Stoopid’s improvisation skills – one of the best of the genre’s contemporaries.
Other hits from the San Diego troupe follow, with the horns cutting cleanly through a sound system worth noting. It is Kelly Ricker’s first Stoopid show and the college student from Maryland can’t believe how good the music sounds. “It’s so loud but clear, like you can reach out and touch the notes.”
Months before the concert, the Ovation Hall received a major audio overhaul, replacing the venue’s 15-year-old Meyer Sound rig with a new Meyer Sound Panther linear array system spanning the hall’s 70,000 square feet. The impact was immediate. Low-end-heavy tracks like “Cypress Blues” and “Hold It Down” carry genuine weight without muddying the mix, and quieter songs like “Closer to the Sun” achieve an intimacy that casino halls rarely deliver.
Mid-set, the band lays into its hip-hop influences with covers of Jurassic 5’s “What’s Golden” and then “Hands High,” their own track from Top of the World, cut with former J5 emcee Chali 2na. In a poignant moment, the band stops playing after a fan collapses in the pit, making sure she was taken care of by event medics before starting again as the crowd claps respectfully.
The back half deepened for longtime followers before ending the set with a perfectly-played “Collie Man”. In an effort to close the evening like a comet hitting the Earth, Doughty and McDonald, both sharing vocals and guitar, brought out the superstar members of the opening acts and, like a family, belted out a cover of Outkast’s “So Fresh, So Clean,” sending the raucous crowd bouncing out onto the casino floor on a high note.
In true OG fashion, the Road Trippin’ Tour gives a portion of every ticket sold at every venue to the Ghetto Youths Foundation for Hurricane Melissa relief in Jamaica. Three decades after Bradley Nowell of Sublime stumbled across the band playing in a garage, Slightly Stoopid has built a career from that generosity and compassion, and remains a band best understood in a live setting. On this night, they made a 70,000-square-foot casino hall feel like home on the beach.
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