Modest Mouse

Dramamine
I Came as a Rat
F**k Your Acid Trip
Lampshades on Fire
Fire It Up
Bury Me With It
The Sun Hasn’t Left
The Tortoise and the Tourist
Bukowski
King Rat
Never F**k a Spider on the Fly
3rd Planet
Float On
We Are Between
We’re Lucky
Doin’ the Cockroach
— Encore —
The World at Large
Dashboard
Back to the Middle
The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box
Breakthrough

Portland’s rock band Modest Mouse just headlined the Armory in Minneapolis on Sunday, August 22nd, in support of their seventh album The Golden Casket.

Opening the show was Pennsylvania’s The Districts. The band was formed while all the members were still in high school.

We saw the band in Oct 2015 when they were touring for their album A Flourish and a Spoil (Fat Possum). At the time, the band was hot, as we wrote, “Their sophomore record has been getting a lot of buzz with indie fans, especially after peaking at #7 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and #28 on the Top Independent Albums chart.”

After over a year or so not being able to play live, because of the pandemic, The Districts are just simply happy to be back live concerts. Singer Rob Grote, quickly commented after their first song, “Man, it’s been a while. Have you guys been to a show since… this (indicating the virus) went down?” The someone in the audience took the opportunity to reply with, “Freebird!”

The Districts ended their brief 30-min set with “Cheap Regrets”.

This was possibly Modest Mouse headlining their biggest venue yet, the Armory. The Armory was originally built for the Minnesota National Guard in 1935. Things changed over time, and eventually it was converted to a concert venue, at the end of January 2018. You can read more about the 8,400-person capacity venue in our Super Bowl 2018 coverage, “This historic venue built originally in the 1930s and that was once home to Minneapolis Lakers and site of Prince’s ‘1999’ music video, has been recently refurbished into a modern entertainment complex, and located nearby the stadium, will be the concert epicenter, hosting the most high-profile shows.” (And yes, we covered the very first Armory show on Feb 1, 2018).

So, yes, the venue is massive. Even Modest Mouse singer Isaac Brock had to admit, “It’s bigger inside than it is outside!”. While the majority of diehard Modest Moust fans were packed on the dancefloor and close the stage, but there were plenty of premium options, like upper floor booths, etc.

As previously mentioned, we’ve been big fans of Modest Mouse since they hired The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to write some of their songs… which they were happy to play the well-received hit song “Dashboard” as one of their songs on their encore.

If you follow Modest Mouse, you’ll know that they play a completely different set list night after night. This showcase the band’s talent and ability to change songs on the fly.

Since the tour is for their new album, The Golden Casket, they sprinkled some of the new songs (“F**k Your Acid Trip”, “The Sun Hasn’t Left”, “Never F**k a Spider on the Fly”, “We Are Between”, “We’re Lucky”, “Back to the Middle”) throughout their set.

The Golden Casket is available now on Epic Records.

Remaining Modest Mouse 2021 Tour Dates:

08/24 – Missoula, MT – KettleHouse Amph
08/27 – Portland, OR – McMenamins – Edgefield
08/28 – Portland, OR – McMenamins – Edgefield
08/29 – Bend, OR – Les Schwab Amphitheater
09/11 – Seattle, WA – Marymoor Park *
09/12 – Seattle, WA – Marymoor Park*
09/16 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
09/18 – Las Vegas, NV – Life Is Beautiful Festival
09/19 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Federal Theatre
09/20 – Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre – Tucson
09/22 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union
09/24 – Pioneertown, CA – Pappy and Harriet’s
09/25 – Los Angeles, CA – The Theatre at Ace Hotel
09/27 – Sandy, UT – Sandy City Amphitheater
09/28 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre *

09/30 – Oklahoma City, OK – Diamond Ballroom *
10/01-10/03 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits
10/04 – Nashville, TN – Ascend Amphitheater *
10/05 – Cincinnati, OH – Andrew J Brady ICON *
10/08-10/10 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits
10/11 – Huntsville, AL – Mars Music Hall
10/12 – New Orleans, LA – Fillmore New Orleans
10/14 – Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
10/15 – Miami Beach, FL – Fillmore Miami Beach
10/16 – St. Petersburg, FL – Jannus Live
10/17 – St. Augustine, FL – St. Augustine Amph
10/19 – Richmond, VA – The National
10/21 – Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheater
10/22 – Asheville, NC – Rabbit Rabbit
10/24 – Atlanta, GA – Shaky Knees Festival

* – with Future Islands