I love getting surprised by an opening act. But, admittedly, there have been a few concerts where I didn’t exactly rush to the venue and instead just made sure I was there in time for the top-liner. The recently announced Aug. 1 show at the Riverside Theater is not one of those concerts.
An absolutely stacked lineup features co-headliners Band of Horses and The Revivalists, plus support from The Heavy Heavy, whose “Go Down River” we just added to the 88Nine rotation. Taken together, the three bands are capable of constructing a night that feels like a rock-and-roll time machine, stretching from ’60s grooves right up to the present day.
The Heavy Heavy are the relative newbies of the trio, but their sound goes back decades. In his review of the band’s 2022 EP, Life and Life Only, Marc Edelstein of PopMatters name-checked Jefferson Airplane, Joplin, Dylan and Pink Floyd (among others). That’s heady company for a group readying their full-length debut, which is scheduled to come out sometime this year.
Band of Horses are 15 or so years from their first LP, which was nigh-inescapable considering the presence of breakout hit “The Funeral.” Five more studio albums followed, including the underrated Infinite Arms, the CD of which I nearly wore a hole in when that was still a thing. Last year’s Things Are Great was — as my predecessor Evan Rytlewski noted — “evidence of how intrinsically likable this band can still be, a back-to-basics record without the sense of retreat that term usually implies.”
The Revivalists rivaled their co-headliner for inescapability with “Wish I Knew You,” a single from 2015 album Men Amongst Mountains that peaked on the Billboard charts almost two years after the LP’s release. Hardly overnight sensations, the band put out their first album in 2010 and have number five, Pour It Out Into the Night, ready to go for its June 2 release.
You can pick up tickets for this triple bill when the general sale starts at 10 a.m. this Friday, Feb. 24, online and at the Pabst/Riverside box offices.
