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awakebutstillinbed / For Your Health
at Pilllar Forum (July 3, 2025)
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Though I don’t follow different bands relationships with each other closely, I am intrigued by all the ways they can interact. Bands can be rivals, friends, guest on another band’s songs, produce each other albums, even form supergroups (hello, Traveling Wilburys). On a scorching evening in Minneapolis, the bands awakebutstillinbed and For Your Health performed at Pilllar Forum (yes, that is three l’s). While I’m a little unclear on the full relationship of the two bands, they released a four track EP in 2022, hymns for the scorned, where each band contributed two songs, seemingly without crossover between the bands. And here in the summer of 2025, they are co-headlining a tour together with a full night of post-hardcore punk rock.
The evening started with (now) local Minneapolis band Hey Ily (AKA: Hey, I Love You). Caleb, part of the band, told me after their set that they relocated here from Billings, MT about eight months ago. With a great album title (a theme of the bands for the evening) in 2022’s Psychokinetic Love Songs, the quartet (dual guitars & vocalists, bass, and drums) came out firing, as was appropriate for the genre. One vocalist being more a screamer and the other more a singer contrasted well in the early going, with those hefty guitars underneath. Calling for a circle to be made for the more active dancers, I was glad I had found one of the few chairs on the far wall of the venue’s space. (Old man side note: I’m too old to be jumping with the kids. But good for them.) One of the singers called for everyone to move back up to the front, and I have to say I’m not sure I’ve seen such a compliant audience. That guitar heavy sound was definitely not just loud, and there was a good blend of that power noise with good harmonies in the music. Constantly checking on their time, the band used their twenty minutes extremely effectively. The last song was their slowest number for the front half before exploding into the close, with the bassist’s only vocals a primal set of screams. Hey Ily closed on a wall of distortion and quickly headed off stage.
Up next was another local band, Melanerpes. Their pithily titled 2023 album is called Making a Meal of It. Another quartet (again, dual guitars, bass, and drums, with multiple vocalists), they started with an almost dreamy intro of guitars before the distortion picked up with the vocals. In the middle, the singer stepped away for the drummer to first speak, then scream lyrics. The genre’s wide variance of sung to screamed was in full display in the first few songs from Melanerpes. A brief bit of banter and thanks for audience and they jumped back into the music, with the bassist taking lead vocals. This one ripped, both tempo-wise and with the quicker vocals. Being told they had five minutes left, the band laughed and simply said, “I guess we have one more song for you”. The other guitarist got the lead vocals, and it was interesting to see those different styles and how they sculpted the overall sound differently, even with a lot of the same instrumentation. Ending with a repeated scream of “You’re going to reap just what you sow” was a powerful message in these times, and Melanerpes’ cathartic and epic instrumentals after that was a highlight to their brief set.
Side note of the weird. The venue almost completely emptied between each act. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not that I wasn’t thankful, as it got very warm with the full audience packed in. And they all came pouring back in when the next band was about to get going. Also, we had different films and even video game footage behind the bands throughout, and I was quietly amused when scenes from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal showed up.
Moving into “the touring bands”, the first of the co-headliners up was For Your Health, a Columbus, Ohio band headed by singer & songwriter Hayden Rodriguez. They have three full length albums, including the very recent 2025 release of The Bitter Garden. Breaking the mold of the earlier bands, this was a quintet (vocals, keys/backing vocals, guitar, bass, and drums). This was the first band of the evening leaning straight into the screamo, post-hardcore sound. Rodriguez’ punishing scream style was perfectly matched to their music and the crowd was more aggressively into it on the floor (again, thank you table and chair along the wall, you have saved me. Because even with the chair, I had to watch my left side for flying people). This was intense in every way; absolute bonkers energy and tempo from the stage and near chaos in the crowd. Rodriguez and the rest of the band seemed to amp up on that frenetic crowd, but also kept things moving.
Announcing they had their new album for sale at the back, “we’re going to play a lot of songs from it”. The first number from it (I couldn’t catch names) was perhaps the most screamed, which was really saying something. I may not be the best narrator, as I was distracted with trying not to get hurt (several people next to me took major shoves straight into the table on my left; dear reader remember, first, protect thyself). Some throbbing keyboard effects added to the sonic assault (that somehow seems an understatement). After a brief recorded interlude, the crashing drums introduced another number, this one including the slowed down tempo and driving bass riff to finish it off. I loved a brief moment where Rodriguez stated that he’s been a big fan of Hey Ily for a number of years and this was the first time they had gotten to see the band live. But it was right back to the music, with a song that might have been the most musical vocals of the evening, and a bit reminiscent of Coheed and Cambria. Back to the screaming approach, the guitar work was all heavy metal stylings. Closing out strong, including a crowd surfed Rodriguez, For Your Health had checked all the boxes that much of the crowd had come to have ticked.
I spoke with Rodriguez briefly after the set. Asked how the tour was going, he mentioned how much fun it was to be on the headlining side rather than only in support; “If people are here, they are more likely to be here for us”. Travel and schedule have been fine, which always impresses me to hear from a band when they are well in the tour. We also talked of stops that have historically been good or not so much, and how the band has to go into the latter believing that they can have a great show. If energy can translate to great shows, Rodriguez and the rest of For Your Health should have nothing but bangers.
The last band for the evening was awakebutstillinbed, led by singer, composer, and guitarist Shannon Taylor out of California. There’s two brilliantly named albums, including 2023’s chaos takes the wheel and i am a passenger. The sound is variously described as post-hardcore and math rock, which I interpreted as a more musical alternative punk than the straight up screamo, post-hardcore that we had just witnessed. Back to the quartet set up of guitar/vocals, guitar, bass (same person as For Your Health), and drums, there was definitely more of the mix of screamed and sung vocals. Taylor’s singing was actually a solid counter to the distorted guitar work. Several of the early songs slipped between the harder edged post-hardcore and a little more alt punk rock. The keyboardist from For Your Health made an early appearance to sing backup vocals and provided nice harmonies. The bass player got a great driving riff to close it out. A bit of banter from Taylor slowed things down momentarily, with a much quieter start to the next song, with just Taylor singing and on guitar. The rest of awakebutstillinbed started to join back in, and that piece meal addition was very effective prior to the full, loud sound, including a more gravelly sound from Taylor.
The next number was livelier and had the audience jumping in fervor again. The layered guitars on life were great and Taylor perfectly played the slightly quieter verses against the louder chorus. Keeping a close eye on time, the band headed towards a final number and it was for full mosh mode, but still counter balanced with brief respites of the verses. Rodriguez was suddenly on stage to provide backing vocals, and things were clearly winding down. With a hard stop due to a local noise ordinance for the venue, awakebutstillinbed was finished and a long and loud evening had successfully come to a close.
| thaddeus ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com |
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