Em Beihold at Greenroom (April 13, 2025)

Minnesota’s springs are notoriously short and a little unpredictable as to when it actually starts. April, in particular, is anybody’s guess how the temperatures and precipitation will be. Perhaps Californian Em Beihold brought her home weather with her, as it was as close to California weather as possible. Beihold was in town headlining a show at the Green Room in uptown Minneapolis.

Though there was no opener listed on the Green Room’s website, but e.woolf got us started. The singer and guitarist also occasionally looped in some backing ethereal sounds, this was really about the vocals. The first stage story let us know this was not only their first tour ever, but the first night of the tour. The crowd was visibly excited, as this was likely the first concert for many in attendance, driving a connection out of the gate. The third song, Mush, was that feeling described as just as a wild shake of the hands and a yell. When asked if any more explanation was needed, the emphatic no from the audience was a great moment for e.woolf. A cover of Sabrina Carpenter’s Please, Please, Please had the vast majority of the crowd singing along (“You all sound so good!”) and a great joke when e.woolf let the crowd sing the curse word (“You said it, not me!”).

The next number had some more of the backing music, which gave a slightly different feel for the slower number, but it’s all backed by the vibrant singing. With a lot of the songs focused on various aspects of early love that the younger audience could definitely respond to strongly. The next number gave us a pretty impressive lower vocal range. A quick interlude about visiting the Mall of America, making the audience guess which store she went in (it was the Crayola store) gave e.woolf plenty of time to tune, heading into the song Green, a love ballad. Closing on an about to be released song Daisy Jones, we got a perfectly timed 30 minute set.

Em Beihold is a Los Angeles based singer & songwriter in the pop rock genre. Like many musicians of her generation, she initially gained notice through her release of singles that got attention on Tik Tok. Those singles, particularly Numb Little Bug, ultimately got her signed to Republic Records. Beihold has a pair of EP’s, including 2022’s Egg in the Backseat. And given that Tik Tik run to popularity, it probably isn’t surprising to note that her fans ran quite young, with a hefty set of tweeners in attendance with a parent. (Parents were split on whether to stand with their child or grab a seat upstairs, really running 50-50.)

The tour, called Em Beihold’s Super Small Semi-Secret Piano Tour delivered on the premise, with Beihold playing solo at an upright piano. Beihold mentioned this was the first stop of the tour and she was really excited to share old and new songs. Starting with Nobody Else, it was clear we had a group of super fans, as the crowd knew (and sang along) to the whole song, at Biehold’s encouragement. This is pure pop, with an almost straight shot of sugar (it is an underage audience, after all). Biehold understood the assignment here, knowing how to drive her performance, while keeping the crowd excited and involved. Groundhog Day was a great example, as she balanced her singing & playing, while giving up the signing at one of the choruses. Going into the new songs, Biehold mentioned that many of the songs are still being worked and even written, so we were joining her on this ride.

After candidly discussing that she had taken some time off over some depression issues, Biehold said that a lot of it came from constant comparisons to others. Her next song Brutus was exactly about this, with the lyric, “But you’re Caesar and I’m Brutus…”. We also got a shoe change from heels to sneakers (bought at MOA), leading into her most famous song, Until I Found You, a collaboration with Stephen Sanchez, though obviously solo here. Playing a new song, Biehold mentioned she would screw it up, and did, but the crowd cheered her through it. We got a re-appearance of e.woolf (I don’t play guitar!) for the song Excorcism and their harmonization on the chorus was excellent.

Biehold does nicely with the well-populated genre of happy music with often dark lyrics (think The Smiths or Regina Spektor). That poppy sound works well for solo piano and it let her do a lot vocally. Her banter was fun, and as she described the background for the song Hot Goblin, she had the audience laughing and I realized the tweener to early 20’s crowd is a perfect demographic for this. Simple songs covering complex topics (depression, codependency) all in straight forward musical forms. In the song Scared of the Dark, Biehold said, “uh, there’s a bridge here that I haven’t really written yet” and literally played her way through one until back to the chorus. A late song, Soup!, was written after a falling out with friends. Her final song was Numb Little Bug, though there was a short aside to sing part of 12345 acapella with the audience. An effusively thankful Biehold ended the evening, with a successful kick off to her new tour.