Kid Bloom at Amsterdam Bar & Hall, St Paul (14 Mar 2024)

Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Kid Bloom (Lennon Kloser) is touring in support of his new EP Inner Light Part 1 (Position Music), and he headlined the Amsterdam Bar and Hall, in St Paul, on Pi Day (March 14).

Kid Bloom (13 Oct 2022)

You can tell that he’s pleased with the large turnout (mostly teenagers and their parents). He mentioned that the last time he was in town (at the 7th Street Entry in Oct 2022 with Kevin Holliday as support), there were only two rolls of fans.



While most of the fans were close to the stage, there were a few sitting in the back, which Kloser would often urge them to come down to the dancefloor, “C’mon COVID is over!”



Kid Bloom is best known for his debut EP, Lemonhead, which had over 100 million streams when it debut in 2019. The record had The Line of Best Fit describing the title track as “the perfect marriage between 80s pop and contemporary indie.”



Looking at their setlist, it’s oddly, that none of the popular singles, included “Wounded/Surrounded”, “Sledgehammer”, and “Blood Sugar”, were played. Instead, all of Inner Light tracks were played, with the exception of “How to Breath”. The new songs, “Dead Butterflies”, “That’s What Happens”, “More Life”, and “Baby You’re Alright”, went over well with the audience.



With an emphasis on newer songs, this tells me that the singer/songwriter is growing and changing and evolving.



RMR (pronounced “rumor”, not short for “resting metabolic rate”) was one of the supports for this show. He mentioned that although he’s based in Los Angeles, that he is originally from Minnesota. He mentioned that it’s been back two years ago and that he’ll be returning to Minneapolis in September.



RMR, along with his guitarist, Jon Marco (apology if I misheard his name), started his set with a beanie mask, and after a few songs, the mask came off. He did his big eclectic country-rap ballad “Rascal,” but the highlight of his set was for a song called “Sweet Divorce.”



The song was written in response to all the love songs out there… he thought there needs to be a breakup song. So “Sweet Divorce” was written. For this song, he asked for anyone, who has gone through a divorce in the audience as a volunteer to come on stage. A woman named Alisa came on stage, and RMR dedicated the song to her and “f**** Matt” (her ex-husband).



Also on the bill was Poolboy, which was not originally advertised. They came on stage very early, and only had a brief 15-min set. Blink and you missed them.



Poolboy is an indie rock band from Minneapolis, formed in 2015, and fast becoming City Pages’ Best New Band, in 2017. Their new EP Good Orchard came out in 2021.