The Joy Formidable, with Everything Everything at First Avenue, Minneapolis (05 April 2016)

Joy Formidable Setlist

Little Blimp The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade This Ladder Is Ours I Don’t Want to See You Like This Passerby Wolf’s Law The Last Thing On My Mind preceded by snippet of “Watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello Ostrich Cradle The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie — Encore — Austere Maw Maw Song Liana Whirring

Everything Everything Setlist

Blast Doors To The Blade Regret Fortune 500 The Wheel (Is Turning Now) Cough Cough Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread No Reptiles Distant Past

 

Welsh trio The Joy Formidable (Rhiannon Bryan on vocals/guitars, Rhydian Dafydd on bass, and Matthew James Thomas on drums) is back on tour in support of their latest Hitch, stopping by First Avenue last Tuesday, April 5th. As with the album title and cover artwork (featuring the Dafydd’s proposal to Bryan on the side of the road), we are pretty sure the couple got hitched (married) last year.

 

Manchester’s Everything Everything opened up the show, in support of their third album Get To Heaven. The band came to our attention in 2013 when they generated massive buzz selling out their entire UK tour, thanks to their strong songs on their sophomore album Arc, which landed them on the shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize and nominations for the Ivor Novello Award.

Singer Jonathan Higgs noted that this was their “first time here… ever!” and the band seemed generally excited to finally Minneapolis. In fact, they were so excited, they added Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” at the end of their setlist … but unfortunately, due to time constraints, the band did not perform the cover song in their 40-minute set.

As expected, and even though the setlist was more similar than different, The Joy Formidable’s First Avenue show was markedly different than the Red Bull sponsored warm-up gig the band performed across the river in St. Paul last fall.

While the October 2015 Turf Club show was loose with singer Bryan constantly ribbing on the two other members and had the feel of a pub gig down the block, the First Avenue performance was more of a proper rock show, with bigger stage, full light rigs, and the band seemingly very focused.

Add to that, there has been another five months in which they have lived with the new songs from Hitch, further refining them live and making them fit like perfect puzzle pieces, inside their ninety-minute headlining set.

They ended their set with “The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”, and followed up with a four-song encore, starting with “the first song we wrote together” called “Austere”. Obviously, the song is very dear to the band, and we wrote about the song in July 2008 (before the single was officially released!) This was followed by “Maw Maw Song” and a newer song “Liana” (from Hitch), and finally the grand epic extended jam version of “Whirring” from their debut The Big Roar.

The Joy Formidable’s Hitch album is available now on Atlantic Records. The band continues their tour: