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Venue

Surly Brewing

520 Malcolm Ave. SE, 55414, Minneapolis, MN, US

surlybrewing.com/

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Additional details

Doors open: 17:00

Concert in your area for Indie & Alt and Rock.

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Young the Giant biography

Los Angeles quintet Young the Giant continue to brave new sonic landscapes with their wildly adventurous third album, Home of the Strange. On this new release, the band explores their expansive musicianship with boldly eclectic arrangements anchored by a keen melodic presence.

To direct the band’s continued evolution, they collaborated with producer Alex Salibian (Elle King, Mikky Ekko) and Executive Producer Jeff Bhaskar, 2016 Grammy winner for Producer of the Year. Thematically, Home Of The Strange builds from the opening track “Amerika”, a song inspired by Franz Kafka's posthumously published and unfinished novel of the same name. The poignant message and bold sonics on Home of the Strange have been met with critical acclaim, leading to an NPR interview expanding upon the immigrant experience and Rolling Stone referencing “a new-wave sheen that flatters (the band).”

Young the Giant first broke through with their 2010 self-titled debut album, which featured the RIAA-gold certified hits, "My Body" and "Cough Syrup." This was followed by the release of 2014’s Mind Over Matter, which was both a commercial and critical success and prompted The New York Times to call [Lead singer Sameer Gadhia] “one of the great contemporary rock voices.” Since then, the band has toured the world, with their most recent route featuring sold out performances at Radio City Music Hall, The Greek Theatre, and Aragon Ballroom in addition to becoming a festival mainstay.

Cold War Kids biography

With a handful of studio albums to their name, Cold War Kids have over the course of their career have become an international chart success with their original slant of indie rock.

Cold War Kids, who hail from Long Beach California, are made up of Nathan Willet, on guitar and vocals, Dann Gallucci on guitar and vocals, Matt Maust on bass guitar, Joe Plummer on drums and percussion and Matthew Schwartz on keyboard and percussion. They started out as a band in 2004 and Maust dreamed up the name whilst travelling in Europe. It was in Budapest where they stumbled upon a park with old communist statues. He recalls that seeing a playground in that park and the phrase ‘Cold War Kids’ entered his mind.

The band recorded and released their first EP, “Mulberry Street” in 2005, and then two EPs the following year in the form of ‘With Our Wallets Full’ and ‘Up in Rags’. The independent label, Monarchy Music, would go on to re-release the EPs as one compilation album entitled “Up in Rags/With Our Wallets Full, the year after. It was their debut album, “Robbers & Cowards”, released on October 10th 2006 that earned the band a great deal of success with sales nearing 200,000 copies. The album received a healthy dose of critical acclaim too. They led with the single “Hang Me Up to Dry”, which gained airplay on XM Satellite Radio, BBC Radio 1 and Triple J in Australia.

Their sophomore album, “Loyalty to Loyalty” was an organic step in another direction musically; it was released on September 23rd 2008, and received positive reviews from journalists worldwide. They spent the rest of 2008 and the majority of 2009, touring the album, which even featured a tour with Death Cab for Cutie.

In March 2014, they joined forces with Stella Artois and Andy Cavatorta on a side project called “Chalice Symphony”. It consisted of using the renowned glasses as musical instruments that would feature on the song, “A Million Eyes”. Later in 2014, they released the leading single from their fifth album “Hold My Home” which was released on October 21st.

Live reviews

Young the Giant has been one of my favorite bands for so long, since the release of their self-titled debut album, I had hoped for the day that I would see all their gorgeousness live. This day came way later than I planned, after the release of their second album (Mind Over Matter), but it was so worth the long wait. Mind Over Matter really surprised me because of how different it sounded from the first album, but it made me love the band even more. I'm all for how they mixed up their overall sound; it shows how musically diverse they are. While listening to Mind Over Matter, I noticed how each of the band members have improved since their debut album. I never knew Sameer, the lead singer, had that amazing falsetto, and the tempo changes in some of the songs really exemplify how talented this band is. I couldn't wait to finally see Young the Giant.
Seeing them perform in the flesh was such a surreal moment. They were all so beautiful and they played a good amount of songs from both of their albums. They also had awesome style; Eric wore a flamingo sweater and polka dot pants. The crowd was so energetic, and we all sang (more like shouted) along with Sameer. One of the many things I love about Young the Giant is that you can really see how tight they are when they are performing, and everyone gets a chance in the spotlight. They all were so into the music, which helped give the show an upbeat vibe. One of my favorite parts was when they performed "Camera." This song has such a different feel compared to any of their other songs, and seeing them play it live blew my mind. During that song, Sameer switched over to the keyboard. He then surprised us by playing the electric guitar for "Mind Over Matter," and that live performance made me appreciate the song even more. The encore was by far my favorite part of that night for so many reasons. "My Body" was freaking amazing, and that was when everyone was basically jumping out of their shoes! Sameer was so interactive with the crowd throughout the show, and during that song, my friends and I finally got to touch him! He would occasionally lean over the crowd so the people close to the front could get a chance to be close to him. After the concert, my friends and I couldn't get enough of Young the Giant, so we decided to brave the cold weather and wait outside, hoping for at least one of the band members to come out. After what seemed like the coldest hour of our lives, Sameer finally came out! He was so nice, really personable and so easy to talk to. Knowing that Young the Giant sounds amazing live and are also really nice people makes me respect them even more. I'm so grateful that I got to experience that memorable night with my friends and a band that is so dear to me.

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Mimiagamah

One of the worst concerts I've been to.

Kenny's musical skills and singing ability lends him well to bedroom pop/indie, of which his 2 songs sounded good. But as for the rest of his show - that was the worst-sounding punk I’ve ever heard. Maybe a new band and sound tech would help, but the singing also won’t cut it.

Not a musician that's made his name by touring.

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jazo14

Cold War Kids put on one heck of a show. The band sounded absolutely perfect, very crisp, clean and solid. The vocals of lead singer Nathan Willett were strong and clear even as he switched from vocals to piano, to both, and back again. I was really surprised they sounded as good as they did, because listening to their albums you get the feel that the vocals are tampered with a lot.

I was especially eager to see the show because I heard that the guitarist from Modest Mouse, Dann Gallucci, had joined Cold War Kids.

There were quite a few people at the show, and even though the venue was packed the audience was really electric and sang and danced along with the band on the stage. There wasn't a lot of lighting or laser effects like some other shows, but I found I didn't miss it at all because the band was so exuberant and really into the performance.

One of the best moments was when they played their single Miracle Mile, which is one of my favorite of their newer songs. It was a really fast paced, exciting, adrenaline-pumping show and everyone that went had a huge blast!

Anonymous