Temples at Fine Line Music Cafe, Minneapolis (17 June 2023)

Temples Setlist

Liquid Air Certainty Cicada Holy Horses Exotico The Golden Throne Oval Stones Keep in the Dark Slow Days Hot Motion Afterlife Paraphernalia Gamma Rays — Encore — Mesmerise Shelter Song

Tour Dates

British psychedelic band Temples is currently touring in June in support of their latest album Exotico (ATO Records). The group stop in at the Fine Line Music Café in Minneapolis on Saturday night.

Opening the show was Chicago’s heavy, prog psychedelic rock band Post Animal with a 45-min set. The Chicago six-piece features Dalton Allison (bass/vocals), Jake Hirshland (guitar/keyboard/vocals), Javi Reyes (guitar/vocals), Wesley Toledo (drums/vocals), and Matt Williams (guitar/vocals).

Everyone in the band took turn to take lead vocals at some point in their set, so it felt like there was really no one band leader. They played songs from their new self-produced Love Gibberish album, co-written by the entire band. This record is special to them, as after releasing two albums on Polyvinyl, they’ve decided to do things on their own. All six members met at Hirshland’s family farm, and produced months of demos and finding themselves where they first named the band.

“This album takes us back to how it felt before we ever thought we’d be an actual touring band, with no expectations for ourselves,” guitarist Matt Williams says. “Now, we’re inside the gibberish-ness of life, trying to figure out what we need to survive.”

The band looked like they were having a very good time on stage, often moving and invading each other’s space on stage.

Contrary to the hyper movements were dreamy, psychedelic UK band Temples, who took their time to play songs from their latest, latest album Exotico. The record was produced by Sean Ono Lennon, who previously worked on Temples’ single, “Paraphernalia” in 2020. The band loved what he brought to the table on “Paraphernalia” that they asked to work with Lennon again for the new album.

 

Temples, currently featuring James Edward Bagshaw on vocals and lead guitar, Adam Thomas Smith on rhythm guitar and keyboards, Thomas Edward James Walmsley on bass, and Rens Ottink on drums, exploded onto the psychedelic music scene in 2013 with only a handful of singles at the Great Escape NME Showcase: “Temples were surprising solid. They reminded me of Kasabian and Pink Floyd. Lead singer sported the old-school curly brown Afro 60’s look and the other members looked like the Davies brothers from the Kinks. The only downfall to the set, is that they didn’t play “We Were Children.””

By 2014, the band had a hit debut record Sun Structures, which landed at #7 in the UK charts, and was headlining First Avenue’s mainroom in April 2014.

If you haven’t seen the band, do yourself a favor and check them on this new tour. Temples’ Exotico is out now on ATO Records.

P.S. Apologies for the bad photos. When I got to the show, I found out that the battery in my camera had died. The photos below were taken on an iPhone 14.