Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – ROLLING THUNDER: Chronicling the Vietnam War through the urgent rock songs of the time

• By drediman
• August 13, 2025
• No Comments

This summer over at Off-Broadway’s New World Stages, you’ll find the new jukebox musical Rolling Thunder: A Rock Journey. Using a catalog of twenty classic rock songs from the 60s and 70s, the show chronicles the Vietnam War through the lens of a handful of largely fictitious young soldiers and the tangential people in their lives. To give you an idea of the vibe of the piece, among the songs that blare from the stage are “Born to Be Wild”, “Gimme Shelter”, and “Black Magic Woman”.

In short, Rolling Thunder lands squarely between a rock concert experience and a book musical (in an odd way, it somewhat calls to mind the Billy Joel pseudo concert jukebox musical “dansical” Movin’ Out, which also features a segment that depicts the Vietnam War and the scars it has left behind). If anything, the show is most effective when it — smartly — lets the aforementioned songs do most of the talking, during which an undeniable visceral urgency is brought to the wartime chaos. Where the musical falters is in its skeletal book scenes and unsurprisingly two-dimensional characters, despite allegedly being composites of real life people. Indeed, without the shock-and-awe distraction of the high octane songs, the musical can come across a bit surface-level, opting not to delve into the thematic and political nuances of the painful conflict in any truly meaningful way.

As directed by Kenneth Ferrone, Rolling Thunder is a highly sensory experience — loud, brashly lit, and taken at a brisk clip. Although perhaps not the strongest actors, the accomplished ensemble (which includes the likes of Cassadee Pope, the first female winner of The Voice on NBC) sensationally power through the catalog of familiar songs. They’re supported by an expert onstage five-piece band, who provide the visual backdrop to the proceedings, in addition to some strategically placed screens, on which are shown a montage of charged headlines and media from the time.

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ROLLING THUNDER: A ROCK JOURNEY
Off-Broadway, Musical
New World Stages
2 hours (with one intermission)
Through September 7