Alexander Natalie at 370 Sets, St Paul (July 29, 2025)

Another visit to the free summer concert series put on by the St. Paul Downtown Alliance, this entry in the 370 Sets was with Saint Paul based band Alexander Natalie. The band is centered around singer, songwriter, and guitarist Noah Alexander Topliff and has been releasing music for nearly a decade, including 2024’s album Susu. Appearing as a duo, “We’re 2/5th of Alexander Natalie, we will be 3/5th, but traffic is traffic”.

Starting on a pair of acoustic guitars with both members on vocals, the initial songs had a very alt folk rock sound.
This was a laid-back style and Topliff’s singing was a low key, comfortable storyteller feel. We had an early switch to an electric guitar on the third number to include a pedal effect as the band edged towards more Americana alt. After a lengthy tuning, Alexander Natalie started with Topliff solo for the first half before that second guitar started to layer in. It was during this song that the third member of the band arrived and quickly got set up.

The band was now three guitars and vocalists and continued to build up, with Topliff taking a louder and higher singing. A joke about the fact that the third band member had shown up with Topliff’s wife (“showing up late and together?”) elicited a lot of laughs as they continued the set. Alexander Natalie was a perfect match of band to the venue: a backyard concert feel for the relatively small space. And with some kids and a dog in the audience, all that was missing was a campfire (though, thank goodness we didn’t have one, as it was really quite warm). With a new number about his “holy trinity: my wife, my dog, and living in St. Paul”, a slow intro gave way to a faster tempo number. Maybe it was the weather starting to turn from brutally hot to pretty bearable (a nice breeze had started right near the beginning of the set), maybe it was the relatively quiet afternoon in downtown, but Alexander Natalie and their music was a balm for the busy and stressed realities. I’m always appreciative of those moments in a live music concert that create their own space.

A little over halfway in, we got an original song called Original and was a great example of the band’s musical tone. The guitar work continued to mutate around that key folk alt as the band changed guitars or effects on the pedal boards, but never strayed too far away. A late set song was both one of the band’s longest and had the best vocal harmonies of the evening.

Their only cover of the set was Lucinda Williams’ Steal Your Love before heading back into brand new material. The band clearly had some fans in the audience as a youngster came up to give Topliff a hug before the next song. Closing on the first and last song of their most recent album, Alexander Natalie noted that the full band will be performing at Dayblock Brewing on August 9th (additional details on dayblockbrewing.com). This was a quietly effective set and a great introduction to the band.