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Setlist
Tour Dates
08/16 - St. Augustine, FL @ St. Augustine Amph
08/17 - Atlanta, GA @ Chastain Park Amphitheatre 08/19 - Woodlands, TX @ Cynthia Woods 08/20 - Austin, TX @ Moody Theater 08/22 - Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom 08/23 - Oklahoma City, OK @ Zoo Amphitheatre 08/26 - Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre 08/27 - San Diego, CA @ SDSU Open Air Theatre 08/28 - San Jose, CA @ SJ State Event Center 08/31 - Portland, OR @ Edgefield Read More
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Feel-good, high-energy music…
…that’s all you want on a summer’s night, watching live music at a club show, and that’s exactly what Los Angeles’ Youngblood Hawke delivered on, in their rousing 65 min. set at the Triple Rock Social Club.
The evening started off righteously, with a brief but sonically interesting set from fellow L.A. band, Caught a Ghost, which began as a project of singer/songwriter/producer Jesse Nolan. The band, out in support of Human Nature (+1 Records) was released earlier this spring and features the band’s hybrid of 60’s inspired Stax/Motown soul/R&B, melded with current electronica beats, danceable modern rhythms, and eclectic embellishments.
Nolan and Co. play live as a five-piece, which includes a saxophonist and co-vocalist Tessa Thompson, an actress of note, recently in in town to film ‘Dear White People’, which has screened at film festivals and has an October release in theaters.
It was the band’s first time in town though, and they took advantage with tracks like ‘Time Go’, the album closing anthem, ‘Get Louder’, and title track. The best may have been saved for last as their self-described “gospel song” and album opener, ‘No Sugar in My Coffee’ closed their set, with Nolan singing in the middle of the crowd.
Like their song, ‘We Come Running’ (featured in a 2013 Coke commercial), six-piece indie-poppers Youngblood Hawke hit the ground running, and rarely stopped to stand in place for the remainder of their set. The band is still riding high on the momentum from that initial single, as well as first full-length, Wake Up (Universal Republic), the follow up to their previous self-titled EP.
Singer Sam Martin had on, like Jesse Nolan of Caught a Ghost, a casual but colorful printed shirt (Nolan’s a pastel-colored zebra print, Martin’s being a turtle-print Hawaiian pattern, in a battle of loud shirts) with bouncing shoulder-length curly locks, all of which were all hard to clearly distinguish as he never stopped moving during the band’s upbeat set.
Album opener ‘Rootless’ started the set, first with flourishing guitar, then echoing percussion, going into 80’s-esque keyboards with Martin’s vocals, which aptly set the tone for the hour ahead. ‘Glacier’ did anything but move as slowly as an actual glacier, and ‘Stars (Hold On)’, their 2nd single, was an ideal example of the band’s musical infectiousness, and had Martin asking his man on the boards to keep the lights down low for the song.
Co-vocalist Alice Katz (wife of multi-instrumentalist member Simon Katz) took more of a central role on the positive lyrics of ‘Dreams’ and ‘Live & Die’. A few new songs were played, including ‘Pressure’, a mid-tempo banger with swirling guitar riff that fit in well amongst the older songs.
The band’s love of percussion grew as the set was continued, with ‘Dannyboy’, an ode to a fallen friend that had multiple drums beaten on, behind the buzz of keyboards and its bass foundations, to end the main set.
“We just wrote this song with some German fellas-- nice guys”, Martin mentioned in his intro to the new ‘Wolves’, written with duo, Digitalism, with singer Katz crooning on the chorus, “we can take our time to find our way”.
“Sing this song as loud as you can”, Martin implored before the last (and most anticipated) song of the night, ‘We Come Running’ was played, with the crowd completely unleashed for its chorus; hands/phones in the air, bodies moving, and voices chanting back to the band.
Feel-good, high-energy music had done its job.
…that’s all you want on a summer’s night, watching live music at a club show, and that’s exactly what Los Angeles’ Youngblood Hawke delivered on, in their rousing 65 min. set at the Triple Rock Social Club.
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Caught a Ghost: Jesse Nolan
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Caught a Ghost
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It was the band’s first time in town though, and they took advantage with tracks like ‘Time Go’, the album closing anthem, ‘Get Louder’, and title track. The best may have been saved for last as their self-described “gospel song” and album opener, ‘No Sugar in My Coffee’ closed their set, with Nolan singing in the middle of the crowd.
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Youngblood Hawke
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Sam Martin and Nik Hughes
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Album opener ‘Rootless’ started the set, first with flourishing guitar, then echoing percussion, going into 80’s-esque keyboards with Martin’s vocals, which aptly set the tone for the hour ahead. ‘Glacier’ did anything but move as slowly as an actual glacier, and ‘Stars (Hold On)’, their 2nd single, was an ideal example of the band’s musical infectiousness, and had Martin asking his man on the boards to keep the lights down low for the song.
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Alice Katz
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The band’s love of percussion grew as the set was continued, with ‘Dannyboy’, an ode to a fallen friend that had multiple drums beaten on, behind the buzz of keyboards and its bass foundations, to end the main set.
“We just wrote this song with some German fellas-- nice guys”, Martin mentioned in his intro to the new ‘Wolves’, written with duo, Digitalism, with singer Katz crooning on the chorus, “we can take our time to find our way”.
“Sing this song as loud as you can”, Martin implored before the last (and most anticipated) song of the night, ‘We Come Running’ was played, with the crowd completely unleashed for its chorus; hands/phones in the air, bodies moving, and voices chanting back to the band.
Feel-good, high-energy music had done its job.
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Youngblood Hawke at Triple Rock, Minneapolis (08 Aug 2014) |
