Summer Cannibals at 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (08 August 2019)

Portland’s Summer Cannibals kicked off their 2019 tour at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis on August 8th.



Starting the show was Minneapolis punk trio Meese (not to be confused with New Zealand’s Meese or New York’s Meese or Toronto’s Meese or UK’s Helen Meese)… formerly known as Mease (not to be confused with Rhode Island’s Mease).
The band played some grungy/punk songs that sounded like “No Skin On My Soul”.



From my understanding, neither Meese or punk duo TV Moms had played the 7th Street Entry before, and the tiny venue impressed TV Moms’ singer (labeling Summer Cannibals as “legit”).



At one point, TV Moms played so hard, they ripped their guitar plug and unintentionally ended on one of their song. They jokingly added, “We planned that.” And with that, they closed their set with the first song on their new album Believe Anything , called “Get Away”.



It’s hard to believe that the first time we saw grunge/punk band Summer Cannibals, they were one of the opener for electronic pop band Chvrches in June 2014. We wrote, “Summer Cannibals opened the show with a 35 min. set, a Portland-based post-grunge band featuring vocalist/guitarist Jessica Boudreaux and former Minnesotan Marc Swart on guitar, who was cheered on by family in the audience…. Boudreaux has a sometimes fierce vocal, not unlike Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, and Swart’s fuzzy guitar recalls the best things about the Northwest sound of the early ‘90s. Swart, who hadn’t been back to the state in five years, had even teased a Nirvana riff before one of the songs, while perhaps unconsciously promoting a competing show with his Red Fang t-shirt, as that band was playing down the street the same evening. Tracks like ‘Wear Me Out’ and ‘Hey/I was Saved’ sounded both influenced and updated for a 21st century audience.”



After we’ve seen the band two other times, we can conclude that the band absolutely loves Minneapolis. This is partly because they probably have a former Minnesotan band member (guitarist Marc Swart).
Singer Jessica Boudreaux (with slitters on her eyelashes!) mentioned that, “we haven’t been here in three years now”, noting that their last appearance was in Apr 2016 (they opened up for The Thermals) and we wrote, “The blistering noise-pop of Portland brethren and Thermals pals, Summer Cannibals, came next to punch holes in our faces and light fires under our asses.”



Since the tour is for their new album, Can’t Tell Me No (Tiny Engines), the band did play quite a few new songs, including new single “False Anthem”.



Remaining Tour Dates

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