SikTh at The Varsity Theater 8-22-16

 My review of finally seeing SikTh live on Monday August 22, 2016 at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, MN

Shown:
The Trees Are Dead & Dried Out Wait for Something Wild
Death of a Dead Day
Opacities

Setlist
Part of the Friction
Philistine Philosophies
Hold My Finger
Scent of the Obscene
Flogging the Horses
When Will the Forest Speak...?
Wait for Something Wild
Pussyfoot
Skies of Millennium Night
Sanguine Seas of Bigotry
Bland Street Bloom

SikTh coming to the US including MPLS (8/22/16!)! (w/Periphery)

Holy mother!..

FINALLY I will get to see SikTh live!

Also should be sweet to see CHON again. Periphery, of course have their fan base, and I have seen them before, from memory with Fair to Midland a few years back. I'll definitely be there to see them as well.

Monday Night August 22nd @ The Varsity!



8/4 Raleigh, NC
8/5 Atlanta, GA
8/6 Memphis, TN
8/7 Dallas, TX
8/8 San Antonio, TX
8/9 Houston, TX
8/11 Phoenix, AZ
8/12 San Diego, CA
8/13 Los Angeles, CA
8/14 San Francisco, CA
8/16 Portland, OR
8/17 Seattle, WA
8/19 Salt Lake City, UT
8/20 Denver, CO
8/22 Minneapolis, MN (Varsity Theater)
8/24 Milwaukee, WI
8/25 Grand Rapids, MI
8/26 Detroit, MI
8/27 Pittsburgh, PA
8/28 Philadelphia, PA
8/30 Boston, MA
8/31 New York, NY
9/01 Baltimore, MD

The Dear Hunter Live 9/13/15 at The Triple Rock Social Club

I saw them last night for what I count was the 8th time in as many years, at the Triple Rock.

I believe this is the setlist, or quite close to it, with the order possibly a little different.

Wait
The Thief
Mustard Gas
Shame
The Old Haunt
1878
Waves
Smiling Swine
The Line
A Night on the Town
Misplaced Devotion
Things That Hide Away
Where the Road Parts
Home
Whisper

encore
The Church and the Dime
Life and Death

Pretty epic show.

I arrived around 8:45PM; the 2 openers Gates and CHON: Gates had already finished, and CHON about to start, so unfortunately I wasn't able to see Gates per I had Rosh Hoshannah dinner last night. CHON though were pretty amazing, rather technical, mathy at points. A lot of use syncopation and interplay between their guitarists and drummer. I would compare them to being maybe a bit more of a math-rock version of Scale the Summit or Animals as Leaders.

But of course The Dear Hunter then went on and put on another highly energetic, very *live* show. The set-list more or less speaks for itself. We got "The Line" which I guess some other shows got "Bitter Suite IV and V: The Congregation and the Sermon and the Slit"

A lot of the Act IV tunes sounded great live. I will say, the mix at The Triple is normally pretty good, compared to other venues. Last night it was hit and miss, as at point it was clear the guitars were a lot higher than things like the vocals or keyboards, as at points I only really could hear them. But that was probably only in isolated moments.

The Crowd was rather large, in fact maybe the largest crowd I've ever been to at a The Dear Hunter show. The Entry show a couple of years ago probably had 200-250 people, I'd guess last night was around 300 or more. I think many came for CHON though, which happens sometimes depending on the openers. Regardless though, it was quite a lot of people to see them, even compared to past years, namely when they've headlined.

Baby steps I guess in terms of a following. Casey mentioned it multiple times how grateful they were to see that many people there for them, and even surprised initially how crowded it was.