Out of This World: Lord Huron’s Cosmic Selector Chooses Minneapolis.
Lord Huron’s sold-out concert at The Armory brought theatre, existentialism, and a divinely appropriate setlist that entertained as much as it posed questions.
In support of their latest album The Cosmic Selector, Volume I, lead singer of Lord Huron, Ben Schneider asks, “What if you could choose your fate like choosing a song on a jukebox? What if your finger slipped and you got the B-side instead? What if you misunderstood the meaning of the dang song to begin with?”
And this sentiment played out in an elaborate and thoughtful presentation from set to setlist.
The stage featured multiple levels, props, and projections resembling something between a southwestern desert and a bayou junkyard. Similar to the motifs of their new album. Present were natural elements among a movie projector, pay phone, and jukebox…the latter central to the album’s theme mentioned above.
Ironically, the first “singing” of the evening was not even Schneider. It was actress Kristen Stewart, her noir voiceover playing for “Who Laughs Last” from the new album. Eventually, Schneider came to the stage, took the pay phone that mysteriously dangled in the air, and screamed lyrics like “you don’t remember what I said/but you’ll remember what I did.”
Evident from the first song as well as the night, the guitar-heavy band ripped chords and riffs noticeably harder than how it sounds on the new album. Pulsing and pounding the emphatic messages further home.
The next two songs played were also from the recent album, as Schneider went into “Looking Back” and “Bag of Bones” as well. From there, he went into popular tracks like “The Ghost on the Shore” and “Ends of the Earth”. Then, the audience was introduced to central characters who performed on stage.
A man and a woman danced on stage throughout the evening. Even on the Armory’s balcony. And each time projected the thoughts of longing, isolation, and escape prevalent in Lord Huron’s songs. In fact, during several songs, the graphic on the screen flashed a neon sign: FEELING LOST?
The jukebox flickered. Lightning crashed into abandoned statues on the terrain. And Schneider belted out I gotta get away from here/I gotta get away from her. At one point, he even illuminated a thought underlying the new album, saying “no one runs free from pain without paying their cosmic debt”.
That pain seemed prevalent in the dancers as well as the lyrics. Though dancing in harmony, at times they seemed despondent and disconnected. And Schneider ached through lyrics of “Long Lost” and “I Lied”, among other songs.
Even in the set’s closing, the deceptive “The Night We Met” played to the duality of the dancers and the seemingly randomness of the life we live. What seems like a romantic reminiscence is actually a lament of the past.
And the flickering jukebox, the Cosmic Selector, was ultimately smashed…as the male dancer’s silhouette hurled a boulder at it after his companion danced away. Even during the encore, Schneider’s silhouette reached out to the broken jukebox and gently touched it before the house lights sharply went to black.
Opening the evening was soul singer Lee Fields, who came to spread love and joy. Right at the opening, he asked the crowd “are you happy?” and repeated that frequently during his set. He also induced the crowd into jumping and waving along during his soulful thirty minute set.
He also asked select male audience members if female companions were “their girl”. The “is that your girl” was met with blushes and cheers, and encouragement from Fields that the men hold on to them, and that they had “something good”.
A highlight was his closing number, “Forever”. The song aired during Super Bowl 57 in a heartwarming commercial for The Farmer’s Dog. And was a fitting close to the love spread during his set.
In closing the spectacularly entertaining show was “Nothing I Need”, “Not Dead Yet”, and “Digging Up the Past”. As Lord Huron left the audience pondering the results of our choices—and the choices made for us.
