Papadosio entered a new chapter in its nearly 20-year history on Saturday in Cincinnati, with the band’s final show before beginning an extended hiatus from touring. A two-night, two-city Ohio run brought the Athens, OH-born, Asheville, NC-based jamtronic band back to the Buckeye State where it all began, culminating at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Live.

Saturday’s show marked Papadosio’s third Ohio concert in the past month after the band returned in September to headline the local Ohio PawPaw Festival in Albany, OH, not far from where the group was born in Athens, home of Ohio University. For that show, Papadosio exclusively performed songs written when the band lived in Ohio, before moving to Asheville around the recording of 2012’s T.E.T.I.O.S double album.

Then on Friday, October 10th, Papadosio began its farewell march with a show at Cleveland’s new Globe Iron before arriving at Riverfront Live on Saturday. Playing alongside the adjacent Ohio River, there was a sense that the perpetually touring Papadosio had finally flowed home (even if they hadn’t lived there in over a decade), a familial feeling underscored by keyboardists Sam and Bill Brouse‘s mom in attendance.

“So proud of my two wonderful sons,” Sandy Brouse wrote on Facebook in a post shared to the band’s fan page, now flooded with memories and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia “What do now?” memes. “Thank you all for your support and generosity over the years. Cheers to a new chapter.”

Opening the show with the gentle rolling synths of “…and This is What He Thought”, Papadosio crafted a setlist spanning the band’s career—delivering tearful nostalgia for day one Ohio fans and recent converts alike. The reminiscing began immediately with “By the Light of the Stars”, the title track that opens Papadosio’s 2007 debut EP.

The first set jumped throughout the band’s discography, as “By the Light of the Stars” led into the minimalist “Versicolor” off 2020’s Microdosio, one of two full-length studio albums Dosio released this decade. It wasn’t going to be a last Papadosio show without “Find Your Cloud”, no matter how much jaded fans have come to dislike the band’s most popular song. But those who resisted the urge to use the bathroom out of spite were rewarded with a sandwich of “Find Your Cloud” into a “Curve” jam before bringing it back to FYC.

After a pairing of “Shiitake” and “Epiphany” closed the first frame, it was time for the last Papadosio set for the foreseeable future. At the outdoor stage, keyboardist Sam Brouse directed attention skyward for a blissful “Pool of Stars” opener before going back to 2009’s Obersvations for guitarist Anthony Thogmartin‘s reflective “All I Knew”. Drummer Mike Healy and bassist Rob McConnell shone on another quintessential Dosio song, “Improbability Blotter”, paired with more introspection from the chorus of voices in “Just Like the Days”.

Maybe it’s just the denial talking, but Papadosio inspired some hope without saying a word with the next song, “We Can Always Come Back”. The instrumental off 2015’s Extras in a Movie likely wasn’t high on a ton of fans’ requests for the band’s last set, but the song’s floaty intro gave some temporary serenity to the anxiety of the ticking clock.

For perhaps some more literal words of encouragement, look to Thogmartin’s post ahead of the final run.

“We’re musicians for life,” Thogmartin reassured fans on the band’s social media. “We will be making music together again. We just need time with our families to recalibrate, to recoup, and then eventually to record. This isn’t farewell forever; this is just farewell for now.”

Though comforting, those words didn’t make it any easier as Papadosio pounded out the final notes of the set-closing “Paradigm Shift”. Taking the stage together one last time for who knows how long, Papadosio picked “Improbability Blotter” back up and then rode off into the sunset on the looping guitar riff of “Night Colors”. And then it was over.

Papadosio now joins the ranks of Dopapod, Twiddle, and Aqueous, who have all gone on indefinite hiatus in the past two years. Of those colleagues, however, Papadosio offers fans some of the brightest hope for the future, leaving the door open for future studio releases as the band takes a much-needed break from touring. Still, that was only a small comfort waking up on Sunday morning to a world where the next Papadosio performance remains unknown.

“It’s a tale as old as time,” Dopapod guitarist Rob Compa told Live For Live Music last December about the trend of hiatuses. “There’s a ton of different generations of bands and most of them have a certain shelf life. … If you look in the past decades, in different generations of bands and all sorts of genres, bands just play, and then they don’t play, and then there’s other bands. And round and round we go.”

Check out some photos from the last Papadosio show before the band’s hiatus, courtesy of photographer Daniel Ojeda, along with some fan-shot videos. Stay tuned to the band’s social media for any developments.

Papadosio — “Versicolor” — 10/11/25

[Video: Reverend Mojo]

Papadosio — Clip — 10/11/25

[Video: Mike Washer]

Setlist: Papadosio | Riverfront Live | Cincinnati, OH | 10/11/25

Set One: And This is What He Thought, By the Light of the Stars > Versicolor, Find Your Cloud > Curve Jam > Find Your Cloud > Shiitake > Epiphany
Set Two: Pool of Stars, All I Knew, Improbability Blotter > Just Like the Days, We Can Always Come Back > Paradigm Shift
Encore: Improbability Blotter (Reprise) > Night Colors