Little Steven's Underground Garage Cruise 2: Soraia Gets the Ship Rocking!

by Kevin Wierzbicki

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The sea was calm but boy was the ship rocking as the Little Steven's Underground Garage Cruise 2 took place April 3-7, 2026 aboard the Norwegian Cruise Line ship Pearl as she sailed from Miami to Cozumel, Mexico and back. And no wonder; the floating festival presented by music cruise specialists Sixthman had a lineup stacked with talented garage rockers including Jesse Malin, Supersuckers, The Dollyrots, Gyasi, Michael Monroe, The Mooney Suzuki, Goons!, Redd Kross, The Jellybricks, Black Lips, Pandora and the vaunted daddies of the genre, The Sonics. Getting it all started on the first day of the cruise was Philadelphia's Soraia.

Playing the first show of the cruise is an honor and Soraia, performing in the ship's intimate Atrium venue, took the opportunity to rock hard and set the tone for the rest of the cruise. Fronted by vivacious singer ZouZou Mansour, the band played a set of favorites including "Jokers, Thieves and Liars," "Monsoon Liberado," "Monster," the fuzz guitar laden "Body in the Backyard" and a cover of a nugget by The Sonics, "The Witch." They also closed their hour long set with a cover, a take on "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" by The Kinks.

The sail away show that took place as the Pearl pulled out of Miami was performed by the cruise's headliner, Social Distortion. The long-running and much-adored band played a set that included the anthemic "Tonight," "No Way Out," "The Way Things Were" and the wonderfully-named "The Creeps (I Just Wanna Give You)." The show, coincidentally, took place on the 64th birthday of Social D front man Mike Ness, who joked that if you look up "arrested development" in the dictionary that it'll say "Mike Ness."

With music happening on five different stages there was always an exciting show to see during Little Steven's Underground Garage Cruise 2. The way the performance schedule is structured each artist plays multiple times so if fans miss one show they have other chances to catch their favorite players. And they can also catch the artists in various autograph sessions where performers signed vinyl LPs, CDs and other items including a very cool poster that each cruiser was given at the beginning of the cruise. Taking photos was cool too, and some acts, like Goons!, really hammed it up when posing.

Some of the show highlights from the first two days included a Pool Party (yes, at the ship's pool deck) by instrumental surf rockers The Surfrajettes, a show in the ship's Atrium by legendary dBs members Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple, which Holsapple quipped was "the quietest show on the ship," a true garage rock set from The Courettes, also at the Pool Stage, and a highly-anticipated show by The Pandoras where the ladies performed their Still Pretending album in its entirety and in order, along with other cuts from their catalog afterwards.

Another cool thing that happened multiple times during the cruise were interview sessions conducted by some of the SiriusXM DJs on board (Kelly Ogden, Michael Des Barres and others) one of which was a session where The Mighty Manfred of The Woggles interviewed Rival Sons. That session included Rival Sons performing an extended acoustic version of their song "Face of Light."

Our next article is about the fun that cruisers had when the ship reached Cozumel. Little Steven's Underground Garage Cruise 3 will sail from Miami to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic April 24-28, 2027 and feature X and The Damned as headliners. Find more information here.

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