Horsegirl at Fine Line, Minneapolis (26 July 2022)

Chicago’s Horsegirl is currently on tour for their debut album Versions of Modern Performance (Matador Records), stopping by the Fine Line Music Café in Minneapolis on July 26th.

The original support band Dummy had to bail out. The Los Angeles band released their debut LP on Chicago’s Trouble in Mind Records… which may explain how they knew Horsegirl (based out of Chicago).

Instead, Chicago’s Lifeguard opened the show. The very young band, named “The best teenage band since Squirrel Bait” was very excited to play outside of Chicago.

The trio (Kai Slater on guitars and vocals, Asher Case on bass, and Isaac Lowenstein on drummer) looks like they’re still in high school. They did look nervous, but, as I mentioned before, they also seemed really excited to play for us. Bassist Asher hid in his afro, at first, but did warmed up as their set went on.

As soon as Asher said it was okay to come closer to the stage, everyone stepped forward… including two dedicated head boppers at the front of the stage.

As you can see from their hand-written setlist, they played everything from their latest EP, Crowd Can Talk, and throwing in some other singles they’ve released in 2020-2021.

Horsegirl confessed that they’re in league with other youth bands, such as Lifeguard, Post Office Winter and Friko, and they are proud of their team-ups.

I previously mentioned in Jul 2021, “It should be interesting to see where the band lands as the trio continues to grow and attend college later this year. We’re also curious to see a debut album with their recent signing with Matador Records.”

A year later, I can let you know that the trio (Penelope Lowenstein, Nora Cheng, and Gigi Reece) seemed to be sharing more vocals/songs between its two singers Penelope and Nora (before it looked like Penelope did most of the heavy lifting).

They’ve also seem to downplay their experimental “Sonic Youth” fiddling and seemed focused on being a teenage rock trio. They’re still learning, they’re still evolving… and that’s exciting.

Horsegirl’s debut album Versions of Modern Performance is available now on Matador Records.

Remaining tour dates: