Judah and the Lion w/Smallpools at Uptown Theater, Kansas City, MO (2022-09-08) review

Happy Again is not just the name of the tour, it was clearly the spirit in the room–

Nashville band Judah and the Lion returned to the road for the first time in three years, opening their Happy Again Tour at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City, and the feelings of joy were clearly contagious.

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The evening started with a forty-minute set from Los Angeles indie-pop band Smallpools, in support of their 2021 release, Life in a Simulation (on RCA Records). We caught notice just as the band was starting, seeing them live twice in three months back in 2013, and while still on our radar, we hadn’t seen them since.

Since then, of course, the foursome has honed their sound and built up a healthy fan base along the way, with most songs still having a feel-good, laid vibe about them. The band cleverly segued their own “Mother” from 2017 into a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” and singer Sean Scanlon explained how the phrase “Killer Whales” kept coming up in a web self-search feed for their own band name, so decided to write a song titled that. As the band struck up the song, a big inflatable black and white orca was batted about and passed around the audience.

“Though my dollars are few, I feel like a Million Bucks” Scanlon sang on their 2017 song, as the set would end with the band’s very first single, 2013’s “Dreaming”. “This has been the perfect kickoff to the tour!” Scanlon exclaimed.

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Judah and the Lion are going through a Revival-–

Not just the title of their fourth studio album (released in June on Cletus the Van Records), but professionally (with the departure of co-founding member Nate Zuercher at the end of last year) and personally as well, and through all the introspection the pandemic allowed us.

The core lineup is down to the duo of Judah Akers and Brian Macdonald and their renewed musical outlook is one of hope, happiness, and an innocence that the band began with, a decade ago. We first saw them live in 2014 as a modernized folk band, were amazed how they broadened and “city-fied” their sound and perfected their live show just a year later, and then watched how their hybrid of folk hop n’roll, would take the musical world by storm, soon after.

Diehard fans jammed the front barricade as the band began their ninety-minute set, already having memorized the words to the new songs to sing along with, starting with the new “Take a Walk”. Singer Akers definitely noticed immediately as well, grinning wide as he sang and never really letting that smile drop for the duration as fans related to the happy but insecure lyrics of “Quarter Life Crisis” and “Over My Head”.

With Zuercher missing, MacDonald has picked up the banjo in addition to his own mandolin parts, quiet and unassuming in his stage right position, but ably filling the musical gap.

“It’s been three years since a headlining show for us” Akers said, happy to be playing and also pleased to be debuting new songs that had yet to be road-tested, including the new “Happy Life”, singing “I've never liked letting go, come to find it wasn't mine to hold”, while looking back on a past relationship.

Akers singled out a random crowd member and made her do a short dance as an example, then had everyone hilariously mimic it on “Dance with Ya”. A cover medley would come soon after, with Akers donning his glittered disco ball motorcycle helmet to race around the stage and consisted of three of the most different pop songs one could imagine- from Kelly Clarkson, Creed, and Lil’ Jon, yet it mostly worked!

Newer songs like “Beautiful Anyway” seemed more spiritual in nature- Akers called out the bravery of anyone struggling regularly with their own crises, and also on “Be Here Now” which appreciates the fleeting immediacy of a moment.

The bass beat got deeper, and the familiar mandolin introduced their biggest hit, 2016’s “Take it All Back” and with glitter helmet on, Akers dove into the crowd to high-five and sing from amongst the people to end the main set.

The two-song encore began with the introspective title track from the new record, with Akers singing, “I’m fighting my own lost fight, grip tight on a heavy rope, that wasn't mine to hold” and the evening would end on a very positive note, with the closer from the new record, “Things Are Looking Up”, a song that they were unsure about when recording it (as it was bleak times), but the band decided to choose the glass half-full mentality.

After “losing their jobs for three years” as Akers called it (by being forced off the road), some personal and band member separations, and dealing with many of things we all have over the last couple years, Judah and the Lion has managed to look inward, to then emerge upward, Happy Again for their own musical kind of Revival.

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