tUnE-yArDs Setlist

Oh Child
My Country
Suspended
Sand Into Stone
How Big Is the Rainbow
Gangsta
Water Fountain
Powa
Heartbreak
Swarm
Look at Your Hands
Never Look Back
Bizness
— Encore —
Limelight

Tour Dates

October 1 – Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line
October 2 – Madison, WI – The Majestic
October 4 – Kalamazoo, MI – Bell’s Back Room
October 5 – Detroit, MI – El Club
October 6 – Columbus, OH – Skullys
October 8 – Pittsburgh, PA – Mr. Smalls
October 9 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
November 15 – Berlin, Festsaal Kreuzberg
November 17 – Amsterdam, Tolhuistuin
November 18 – Gent, Wintercircus
November 19 – Paris, La Bellevilloise
November 21 – Brighton, Attenborough Centre
November 22 – London, Royal Festival Hall
November 23 – Manchester, Aviva Studios
November 25 – Leeds, Irish Centre
November 26 – Glasgow, St Luke’s
November 27 – Sunderland, The Fire Station
November 29 – Dublin, Whelan’s

Christening Rocktober 2025, it was a very busy concert night in downtown Minneapolis. I had to work my way around several crowds in front of different venues as I made it over to Fine Line to see the one and only Tune-Yards.

The opener was jazz artist Kassa Overall. He’s a Grammy-nominated drummer, as well being a singer and producer. He has several mixtapes and four albums, most recently 2025’s Cream. While his 2023 album ANIMALS leaned heavily into hip hop, with a variety of great vocal collaborators (Danny Brown among others), this most recent album comes back to those jazz roots, taking hip hop songs and re-imagining them as jazz numbers. Coming to the stage as a duo (drums/vocals and bass/DJ), Overall was wickedly funny in his opening banter introducing himself and his band mate. He mentioned that his father lived in the Twin Cities for a while, “and he tells me stories…and they’re all crazy”. Saying they would be doing some improvisations on songs, they started with an instrumental that he called (maybe on the spot?) Minneapolis Blues. Overall’s skill on the drums was apparent out of the gate, and songs alternated between instrumental and those with spoken word or sung vocals. Another instrumental, Big Poppa, showed off a different sound with one drum stick and a drum brush.

Visible Walls had Overall switching between a variety of drum sticks within that song, starting with mallets, switching to a drum stick that created a very military march sound, then back to regular sticks. I was impressed by those different sounds coaxed out of the drum set. The bass and backing music were solid support of that central drum feature. Coming out from the drums, Overall and Julio Xavier sang to the recorded backing music. Headed into Cream had the first recorded vocals and had Overall back at drums with his fastest drumming of the set. There was a bass solo song for Xavier before moving into the last two jazz-infused hip hop songs. It included an impressive drum solo to start the last number and Kassa Overall closed out an impressive 50+ minute set.

Tune-Yards (often stylized as tUnE-yArDs) is the Oakland-based brainchild of Merrill Garbus. In partnership with bassist Nate Brenner (who joined a few years after the inception of the band), they have released a half dozen albums, including Better Dreaming, released in May 2025. They are classified as alt indie, partly because they live in a variety of overlapping genres from lo-fi to world music to slightly electronica. The calling card is Garbus’ strong and unique vocal style often over complex chord structures. On stage as the duo (vocals/drums/ukelele/keys and bass/electronic music), Tune-Yards came out with Garbus busy right away with the loop recorder for everything from drums to vocals, creating a layered and dense sonic wall. This far into their career, Tune-Yards are masters of their craft, and the switch between instruments, clicking through the pedal boards and precise timing of how long to be out in front of the drum set was all timed to perfection.

My Country was an excellent live version of an early classic, and Brenner got loud cheers for some vocals on that one. Doing “a brand new song that came out a few days ago”, Sand Into Stone started with a great layering of vocals before Garbus drove the verses and moved all across the stage on the repeated lyric “running around”. Getting taught four versions of the lyric “how big is the rainbow” made for some fun interactions with band and audience. A brief mental block of the first verse did nothing but endear Garbus to the crowd and when an audience member handed over their phone with lyrics, Garbus was exquisitely grateful. It made How Big Is the Rainbow one of those live moments that sticks in your memory in the best possible way. Immediately following up with the song Gangsta was almost unfair, and the crowd went absolutely nuts.

Losing her red jacket, they moved into Water Fountain, another crowd favorite. It is difficult to describe how hard Garbus was working, playing drums, singing, and timing all the loop effects. Impressive wasn’t the half of it. Brenner was the quiet steady one and complemented extremely well. Triple looped harmonies and then the quiet uke led verse was a great intro for Powa. There was an artistry to the build up of the loops on multiple songs and it was fun to watch it being put together and then immediately playing out in its final form. Swarm was a darker electronic number that even came with flashing lights and had Garbus singing with heavier reverb effect. Taking a moment to remember the passing of First Avenue’s stage manager Conrad Sverkson as well as thanking opener, staff and audience, Tune-Yards finished the main set with Bizness. The encore started with a short vocal improvisation before closing out with Limelight. A fabulous live show, Tune-Yards nailed it and left the audience in the best possible place of wanting more.