Cannons w Windser at The Bottleneck, Lawrence, KS (2022-06-16) review

For those lucky enough to get a ticket to a sold-out Bottleneck in Lawrence, KS, the night was like a blissful fever dream as Cannons returned to the region for a highly anticipated headlining show.

The night began with an impressive opening set from young Santa Cruz, CA singing-songwriting newcomer Windser (aka Jordan Topf and band) in support of a handful of released singles, including their newest “Memory”, and more new music on the horizon.

Topf was especially happy playing this first time in town, with a cousin sitting on the grandstand cheering him on, while the opening up-tempo of “Friends I Barely Know” set the table for a fun and melodic indie-pop forty minutes.

Girls up front swooned as Topf sang, “I wanna warm you like the sun does, stick to your body like peach fuzz”, his song “July” was an early 2020 release that first started people taking notice of, and “Drift Away” was written with his father as inspiration. The set ended with the newest single, and we have the strong feeling we’ll be hearing from Windser again soon, with bigger things to come.

Speaking of bigger things, we knew LA-based alternative/electro-pop band Cannons (stylized as CANNONS) would soon be headlining major venues of their own, after we were knocked out watching them open in Kansas City back in Nov 2021. The band signed with Sony Music/Columbia and released full-length Fever Dream in late March, and have been rapidly growing their fan base ever since, selling this and many other venues, out on this tour.

The dream pop trio (Michelle Joy- vocals; Ryan Clapham- guitar; Paul Davis-keys/guitar, w/Ben on drums) have been together since 2013 with a few prior EPs and albums, but it was the inclusion of their 2019 song “Fire for You” in the Netflix comedy-drama series, Never Have I Ever, that was the linchpin to break them through to mainstream success.

The band was dressed in various shades of red for their seventy-minute set, with singer Joy in a crushed velvet sleeveless jumpsuit, highlighted with matching boots and a single right-handed red glove. The band opened with “Shadows” from their 2019 album of the same name, and it was immediately clear that though most of their output on record is of the chill and laid-back variety, the songs became more energetic and impactful in concert, perfect in their slightly transformed format for an anticipating capacity crowd.

“We’re so excited to be here…thank you for filling up this room!” Joy exuded, living up to her name, constantly jumping about the stage, reaching out to audience members, and encouraging dancing and singing along to the band’s self-described “future boogie”.

Fans clapped along to radio hit, “Bad Dream”, Joy admitted that “Tunnel of Love” was one of her favorites from the new record inspired by black holes where time stands still, and on the whistling “Hurricane”, Joy sang, “I'm coming back like a hurricane, I'm gonna take you higher”.

While the band worked on Fever Dream, they also wanted to keep releasing new music, so issued a 2021 Covers EP that included Harry Styles’ “Golden”, making it their own by slowing the beat and with more ethereal vocals; in other words, it fit seamlessly into their live set.

“This song is a really special song to us, it changed our lives” Joy remarked before the main set’s final song, “Fire for You”, their biggest success to date which topped the Billboard Alternative Airplay charts and found the crowd chanting the chorus back in unison.

For the single-song encore, the band reached back all the way to their beginnings for 2015’s “Evening Star” with Joy singing, “I wanna take you high into the night, like the stars in the sky we could live out our lives” and that was exactly the feeling for the sold-out Bottleneck crowd as they filed out into the warm night after witnessing Cannons, in a deliriously happy fever dream.

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