Middle Kids at Fine Line Music Cafe, Minneapolis (2021-10-03)

Atlanta-based Mattiel opened the show, armed with just her hypnotic voice and lone guitarist Jonah Swilley. This is quite stripped down, as the last time she was in town, in June 2019, she had a full band.

“It’s show number four, since COVID,” declares Mattiel, right before she played the B-Side “Freedom Feels” (flipside of “Those Words” from ATO Records). Shortly after the song, the duo covered The White Stripes’ “In the Cold, Cold Night”… which is one of the rare White Stripes song that features Meg White on vocals. They probably decided to cover the song because the band was asked to open for Jack White for a series of dates in 2018.



Mattiel ended her set with a triple feature of “Millionaire”, “Baron’s Sunday Best”, and “Whites of Their Eyes”.



Middle Kids was saddened to announced that the Minneapolis date was the “last Midwest show” on their tour schedule.
Singer/guitarist Hannah Joy said that the Midwest had the friendliest people on earth, and not in a weird back-stabbing friendliness found in Australians (according to the band). After being locked down due to the pandemic, it just seem that the band was very happy to re-visit America again… and treating the world tour as if they were on holiday.



Before the “oldie” song, “Your Love”, was played, bassist Tim Fitz dedicated it to “the day-one fans”. The song is the title track to their debut self-titled EP, released in 2017, and landed at number 26 on the ARIA Charts.

Setlist

For “R U 4 Me?”, Joy said that fans described it as “a typical Middle Kids-ey song, with lots of noise, and, you know, ‘Love me! Love me!’”… which the singer denies.



As you can see from the setlist, the second part of their set features plenty of newer songs, including the title track to Today We’re The Greatest.



Today We’re The Greatest is out now on EMI Music.

Remaining tour dates: