Beck Cage the Elephant Pnc Bank Arts Center August 20

[ATTENDED: August 20, 2019] Cage the Elephant

I was rather surprised that Cage the Elephant were co-headlining this tour with Brook.  I assumed that Beck was the clear headliner–and yet the (younger) crowd seemed to be there more for Cage.  I too didn't realize that they had collaborated recently on the song that this tour was named after).

But the biggest confusion for me was that I didn't know who Cage the Elephant were.  They were part of that trend of bands that had three words with The in the heart. Like Pedro the Lion, Jukebox the Ghost, Minus the Bear and Young the Behemothic.  I assumed that I had no idea who Muzzle the Elephant were or what hey fifty-fifty sounded like.

But and so I was surprised to discover that I really liked ii of their songs merely had no idea it was them: "Ready  to Allow Get" and "Mess Around."  After figuring that out, I was looking forward to them just really had no idea what to expect.

Well, they went on about x minutes tardily (which was abrasive, since they'd had 30 minutes to become fix).

Their stage gear up up was like bleachers–a guitar drum and keyboards on the top and a guitar vocals and bass on the floor.  Then the lights went down and the phase burst into flames!

There was pyro on both sides of the stage and as lead vocalizer Matt Shultz came running out from backstage a couple of large fireballs shot into the air.

This is not what I was expecting.

From then on the whole fix was basically the Matt Shultz show.  The rest of the ring: rhythm guitarist Brad Shultz, lead guitarist Nick Bockrath, guitarist and keyboardist Matthan Minster, bassist Daniel Tichenor, and drummer Jared Champion inappreciably moved the whole night.

I had to scout a different live video of them to see if that was e'er the case–it wasn't.  In Bonnaroo 2017 the ring is very mobile.  Well, it turns out that Bockrath really hurt his leg back in June, and so that might explicate why he was up at the top of the stage sitting in a chair for the whole testify.  During Beck's set information technology sounded like Brook said that Brad Shultz was also injured.  I don't really know what he looks similar so I'm non sure if that was him playing or not.  But it seems that Brad is also a bit of a lunatic onstage.  Who ever played rhythm guitar did not do much at our show, either.

So it was very interesting to run into a band that I knew two songs (which sound very different) but not knowing what else to expect from them.

They played 6 songs from their recently released album Social Cues.  I found I enjoyed all of these songs quite a lot.  They mostly rocked pretty hard with some neat catchy guitars.  There was a absurd pulsate break in the middle of opener "Broken Male child," while "Social Cues" was a lot more synthy.  I was trying to make up one's mind who I felt some of these newer songs sounded like and I realized that both "Social Cues" and "Peel and Bones" reminded me of the New York band Chappo.  If you like Cage the Elephant, cheque out Chappo).

I was also really fond of a lot of the bass lines from Tichenor, especially the ones in the new song "Firm of Glass" and "Come a Trivial Closer" from 2013's Melophobia.  They played four more than songs from that anthology, including the moody and theatrical "Information technology'southward Just Forever" and "Telescope" which started off mellow but had a rollicking middle section.

I have yet to mention frontman Matt Shulz considering his performance was and then over the top that it practically needs its own section.

Like only about every male this hot evening, he came out in a suit jacket (white with pink and bluish circles all over it) and long pants.  He also had on a large had and a black glove (?).  When he start stomped around the stage his hat and sunglasses pretty much obscured his face up (I didn't realize that on other shows he was wearing a apiculturist's hood in the beginning, then I approximate that's part of the show.

But dressed like that he proceeded to jump, swagger, autumn and slide all over the stage.  He had a purse effectually his shoulder and another lid which he carried around for a fourth dimension.

S. and I had both agreed that he seemed similar a combination of Beck (the clothes sense and how he looked) and Mick Jagger.  He was the heart of attending and loved every 2nd of it.  The band rocked out and the stomping chords of "Crybaby" perfectly suited his manic free energy.

He walked around the stage, going to both sides, high-fiving people up forepart and being an unforgettable showman.

At one indicate he was lying on the phase in some strange position when something savage out of his pocket (I causeless information technology was something thrown on the stage, but he explained it was a picture someone had given to him.  He unfolded and proceeded to wax-poetically about how cute and meaningful information technology was.  Just that moment of seriousness didn't concluding likewise long.

Then when information technology came to "Cold Cold Cold" he ran out into the crowd and up the aisle.  We all took pictures but none of mine came out.  The song ended while he was notwithstanding out there, so from the dorsum of someone's seat (he was clearly walking across the tops of seats), he instructed the ring to first "Ready to Permit Go," and nosotros all went nuts while he sang from the middle of the fans.

About midway through the prepare he took off his panama hat and replaced information technology with a leather hat.  A fan offered him his own hat which he put on briefly but then returned to his leather cap.  Later he took off the white coat to reveal an orange or red silk kinda of coat (he must have been SO HOT!).  It's hard to tell the color of that jacket because in one picture information technology was scarlet and the other it was clearly orange.  He hung his jacket on the microphone stand (which he had hung his satchel on earlier).

A few songs later, he took off the silk jacket to reveal a black sequined shirt.

Somewhen he went into that black bag and pulled out a different baseball game cap.  I was amused that at some point it was a adult female'southward job to come out and fetch all of his discarded apparel.

I was well-nigh excited to hear the songs I knew of course.  Then I was psyched they played "Mess Around" which is on their 2015 album Tell Me I'm Pretty.  They played a full of v songs from that anthology, like the swagger-filled "Besides Belatedly to Say Adieu" and "Trouble" which had a fun "oooh" heart department that they stretched out and jammed as we all "oooh'd" along.  So they were really sampling from their whole itemize.

They played 19 songs in total which means there was ane each course their first and second albums.

Somewhere around that song, Matt took off the black sequined shirt to reveal yet another shirt!  It had cooled off by then, just holy moley, the layers!

The oldest song was "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" from their self-titled debut.  Information technology sounded vaguely familiar and I wonder if it but sounded familiar or if I had heard it back in 2008 as information technology was kind of an alt-rock hitting.

I didn't really know many of the songs, but some of them did sound familiar.  Had I heard them somewhere and non known it was them?  Very likely.  Or exercise their songs all sound kind of the same and then by the finish everything sounded familiar?  I'm not really sure.  Either way I enjoyed the heck out of it.

A song or two earlier the stop of the set up, a huge cloud of fog was released on phase.  It enveloped Matt.

South. and I agreed after the show that we were sure he was just going to be gone when the fume cleared.  But indeed, he was non.  While in the fog, he had clearly stripped off the balance of his clothes to reveal a kind of trunk stocking and red running shorts.  Wow.

This new outfit suited him nearly and he sprang around the phase, jumping and getting everyone totally psyched.

They ended the bear witness with "Teeth" a song that went into an absolutely cluttered and wonderfully insane ending.  At that place was more fire and strobing lights and eventually as the vocal finished, Shultz ran out into the crowd one more than time, presumably for good.

The ring started to exit the phase to the strains of "Nosotros Are the Champions," and so we heard the hubub from the back of the seated section.  It turns out Matt had gone all the style back to the stop row of seats and was standing on the chairs with his arms in the air.  I read online that he jumped out into the lawn area as well.

This was a but unforgettable performance.  I detest to say that he totally overshadowed the music, but he really did.  Purchase the end of the show I was far more interested in what he was going to do than in what they were playing.

Nevertheless, I came away with a great feeling virtually the ring and their music.

And I would totally see them again, no question.

Information technology too meant that Beck had a actually tough act to follow.

SETLIST

"Cleaved Boy" ©
"Cry Infant" ℘
"Spiderhead" ϖ
"As well Belatedly to Say Adieu" ℘
"Cold Cold Cold" ℘
"Ready to Let Go" ©
"Social Cues" ©
"Tokyo Smoke" ©
"Mess Around" ℘
"Trouble" ℘
"Skin and Basic" ©
"Own't No Residuum for the Wicked" ç
"Information technology's Merely Forever" ϖ
"Telescope" ϖ
"Business firm of Drinking glass" ©
"Come a Little Closer" ϖ
"Shake Me Down" β
"Cigarette Daydreams" ϖ
"Teeth" ϖ

ç Cage the Elephant (2008)
β Give thanks You Happy Birthday (2011)
ϖ Melophobia (2013)
℘ Tell Me I'm Pretty (2015)
© Social Cues (2019)

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Source: https://ijustreadaboutthat.com/2019/08/20/cage-the-elephant-pnc-bank-arts-center-holmdel-nj-august-20-2019-beck/

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