On Thursday, September 29th, St Louis was graced by the presence of two great acts: Ra Ra Riot and Young the Giant on the Home of the Strange tour. It was held at The Pageant, and frankly, it was the perfect show. Allow me to recap:
If you're not familiar with this venue, The Pageant is one of the best. It's indoors, its capacity is only 1000-2300, it has a bar, it has room to stand in front of the stage or sit plus seating on the balcony, and it's on Delmar in St. Louis (right across from my favorite pizza place and just minutes from Forest Park). No matter where you sit, you can see the band up close and personal. Basically, it's perfect.
The opening act, Ra Ra Riot, did exactly what opening acts are supposed to do: they pumped up the crowd. The lead singer, Wes Miles, has an amazing voice that sounds like Walk the Moon vocalist Nicholas Petricca (but almost better) and the electronic indie sound resonated a perfect energy for the event. It made us want to stand up so we could get ready to dance.
When Young the Giant came on, obviously, the place lit up. The set list included mostly songs from Home of the Strange, since, you know, that's the tour they're on and the album is literally brand new, but they also made sure to throw in multiple songs off Mind Over Matter and their self-titled album. As far as live shows go, this was up there in terms of quality. The balance was perfect, Sameer's voice live is even more angelic than you can imagine and everyone's performance energy was perfect. The amount of people dancing in the crowd wasn't awkward, and it was easy to sway along or jump to every single song.
The set began with some grungier of the tracks from Home of the Strange, including "Jungle Youth" and "Something to Believe In..."
Then, they slowed it down with some sweeter songs like "Art Exhibit" and "Crystallized" - which they were playing for the first time at the request of a couple - and yes, we did witness a proposal.
They played some classics, which could not have been received better by the crowd:
And they finished the encore off with one of my favorites:
Simply put and without posting videos of the entire show, this was one of my favorite live performances. 10/10 would recommend going to see Young the Giant as soon as possible.
To see the other stops on this fantastic tour and buy tickets, look here!
