Lord Huron hint at new trails at sold-out Teragram Ballroom show
Kevin Bronson on
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Lord Huron have five consecutive really-sold-out nights at the Teragram Ballroom this week — it could easily have been six or seven, says the promoter — and the takeaways from Wednesday’s opener were that 1) there must have been a dating app that suggested this show, and 2) Ben Schneider and gang seem to be moving gently away from the mystical Western motif of their first two albums.
There wasn’t a cowboy hat in sight Wednesday (although 40% of the band wore man buns), and the Los Angeles quintet played five new songs, including the sparkling “Emerald Star” to match the glowing neon design that backdropped the stage. It suggests the future might hold a jewel, whenever Lord Huron get around to announcing their third album.
The folk-rockers’ first two albums, 2012’s “Lonesome Dreams” and 2015’s “Strange Trails,” held an Old West romanticism. By and large, their songs suggested that a great emotional uplift awaits at the end of a long, dusty ride through lost or unrequited love. Or that you could watch an Alan Ladd movie with your grandpa and he could watch Lord Huron videos with you.
Long-timers will remember, though, that Schneider began his band doing music that could be characterized as tropical chillwave, so he’s not a one-trick pony. Still, the handful of new songs — “Emerald Star,” “Wait By the River,” “Vide Noir” and “Secret of Life” during the main set and “Lost in Time” to kick off the three-song encore — won’t send fans into sonic arrest. “Wait By the River” is one of those concise ballads that demands a Valentine’s Day release. “Lost in Time” swirled in its own dream world. And “Vide Noir” (translation: black void) seemed especially existentially chilling. “This one’s about the future …” Schneider said, introducing the song, ” or is it about the past?”
The rest of the 100-minute show was filled with the charismatic and familiar, with Michigan native Schneider admitting, “Eleven years ago, I came out [to L.A.] thinking I wouldn’t be here long … And maybe it’s time to go, but at least we’re going to be living here the next five nights.
“It’s been a helluva long time since we played here,” he added later, “and it sure feels good.”
Lord Huron bookended the show with songs from “Strange Trails,” starting with “The World Ender” and ending with “Fool for Love.” For the many who were mouthing the lyrics, it was happy trails indeed.
Opening the show was L.A. Takedown, an instrumental seven-piece led by Aaron Olson that eventually won over the audience despite competing with a lot of those first-date conversations.
Lord Huron setlist: The World Ender, Meet Me in the Woods, Dead Man’s Hand, Hurricane, Secret of Life, Ends of the Eaerth, Lonesome Dreams, Wait By the River, Emerald Star, Louisa, The Birds Are Singing at Night, Vide Noir, Time to Run, Time to Run, The Night We Met, The Stranger. Encore: Lost in Time, La Belle Fleur Sauvage, Fool for Love
Photos by Samantha Saturday
To the Author:
Do you have any more info and/or links for the new songs or new album since January? Thanks!
[…] Huron had teased their new album “Vide Noir” at a Teragram Ballroom residency — which was ultimately cut short due to an illness in the band — back in early 2017. With the […]