Modest Mouse at GrindersKC, Kansas City MO (2025-06-24)

MODEST MOUSE TOUR DATES

No psychic salamanders or ice cream floats—

But we’ll settle for another reliably solid set from Modest Mouse, who played outdoors in the heat of the Crossroads neighborhood in downtown Kansas City, familiarly returning again to GrindersKC for a sweltering good time.

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The warm evening got underway with a thirty-five-minute solo acoustic set from Doug Martsch, best known as the lead singer (and lone permanent member) of longtime Boise, ID indie rock band, Built to Spill.

His band is on the Sub Pop label, with their last full-length being 2022’s When the Wind Forgets Your Name, but Martsch has released some solo work along the way as well (mostly in the mid-2000s), and his band remains the evolving musical collective that it was started to be.

This addition to the bill should be a treat on the handful of dates he’s joined the tour, and we assume, an extra treat for Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, who counts the (original) BtS as a musical influence, and the friendly pair did some regular paling around back in the ‘90s (though there was no onstage collab, unfortunately).

Martsch kept his set tight, opening with some solo songs, then moved to some stripped down BtS numbers (though fittingly not the band’s best-known songs) and ended his time with a cover of the 2003 Lucinda Williams song, “Fruits of My Labors”.

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It was an initial feeling of Déjà vu when we first entered the venue’s grounds, right down to the heat, as we previously saw them here near the end of summer 2022. You can consider us big fans, as since that show, we also saw them that December in St. Paul, MN, the next summer back in KC playing with Weezer, and a year ago, across town, on the bill with Pixies (thank you, Grandstand Media!).

So, it was ‘good news’ to us that they made another KC stop, on a tour celebrating last April’s expanded re-release of their early 2000’s alt-rock mainstream breakthrough, Good News for People Who Love Bad News and ahead of their co-headlining summer run with The Flaming Lips. The Portland band formed back in 1993 in Issaquah, WA and has been making waves ever since- influencing a slew of indie bands that would follow and continue to evolve their own post punk indie rock sound, with an often-changing lineup.

Though the tour was in celebration of that heralded twenty-year old album; as usual, the band’s setlist changes dramatically for each show, playing what they want, and are not at all beholden to playing any required handful of hits at each show (i.e. the three singles from Good News– “Float On”; “Ocean Breathes Salty” and “The World at Large” weren’t even touched, not that the crowd seemed to mind).

These setlist variances reward the casual as well as diehard fan into getting a completely different show each time; and we suppose, also encourage traveling to see them on multiple shows during a run and the songs will be very different each time.

As the 100min. set began, both Brock and bassist Russell Higbee came out in sport coats, despite the heat and high humidity (probably some side bets in the crowd on how long those would stay on, which was not long) and the initial jangly guitar riffs of 2000’s “Dark Center of the Universe” started the musical journey.

“The View” was a welcome selection, one of only three songs played from Good News, then we all went into the front seat for 2007’s “Dashboard”. Even better for the fans to hear live was the deep cut, “You’re the Good Things,” supposedly not played live in decades.

Brock commented loving his hot tea backstage (despite the temps outside) and later wondered aloud exactly what a “tension envelope” was, spying in the corner of his eye, the vintage sign in the skyline from the 1886-founded local manufacturing company (sounds like one of their song titles too, so don’t be surprised if maybe…).

“We Are Between” from their last original album, 2021’s The Golden Casket found people pogoing in place with the beat and that continued into the driving “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes”. Brock reminded everyone (including himself) to stay hydrated, and the main set would end on two Good News songs, including “Black Cadillacs,” a bouncy number despite its dour lyrics of non-closure and a spectre of death.

Just like the band’s propensity to mix up their daily setlist, their encores have been known to usually be extended and often can be with a little impromptu (six songs on this night- one song moved, one inserted, and one substitution).

The ‘second set’ got underway with 2000’s melodic “Gravity Rides Everything”, gradually built up without pause, and would wrap with “What People Are Made Of” from the same album, and 2009’s “The Whale Song”, originally slated to begin the encore, and with Brock singing, “Well I know I was a scout, I should’ve found a way out so everyone could find a way out” with an extended instrumental ending, With that, we all did find our way out.

Modest Mouse continues on the road with a very busy road schedule, including their very own Psychic Salamander Festival in Washington state this mid-September and an inaugural Ice Cream Floats Cruise next February, running from Miami to the Dominican Republic.  All Good News, indeed.