Couch Setlist

What Were You Thinking
Saturday
Little Less Over You
Jessie
Poems
Slow Burn
Autumn
Transparent
Window
Static and Noise
Still Feeling You
Lucky To Be Stuck With You
One Night
So Myself
On The Wire
(I Wanted) Summer With You
— Encore —
Easy to Love

Stephen Day Setlist

Moonshine
Hey Lady
Kinda Cowgirl
Gold Mine
On Top of the World
All This Space
It’s Christmas All Over
Brooklyn
Sweet Ice Tea
Dancing in the Street

Tour Dates

11/09 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue*
11/13 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel*
11/14 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird*
11/15 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club*
11/21 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer*
11/22 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner*
12/04 – Denver, CO – Bluebird^
12/06 – Dallas, TX – Trees^
12/07 – Austin, TX – 3Ten @ ACL^
12/10 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda^
12/11 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore^
12/13 – Portland, OR – The Get Down^
12/14 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile^
01/23 – Buffalo, NY – Buffalo Iron Works”
01/24 – Toronto, ON – Annabel’s”
01/25 – Columbus, OH – A&R Music Bar”
01/27 – St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway”
01/29 – Nashville, TN – Basement East”
01/30 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West”
01/31 – Charlotte, NC – Visulite Theatre”
02/03 – Richmond, VA – The Broadberry”
03/05 – Glasgow, UK – Stereo
03/06 – Manchester, UK – Band on the Wall
03/07 – Bristol, UK – The Lantern
03/10 – Paris, FR – New Morning
03/12 – Copenhagen, DK – Loppen
03/13 – Oslo, NO – Vinterjazzfestival
03/14 – Stockholm, SE – Nalen
03/16 – Berlin, DE – Gretchen
03/18 – Utrecht, NL – Cloud9
03/19 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso Noord
03/20 – Ghent, BE – HA Concerts
03/22 – London, UK – Koko
* with support from Stephen Day
^ support from Night Talks
“ support from Thumber

The first snow flakes of the season had fallen on the Twin Cities overnight and through the day, though it wasn’t even a dusting. Inside First Avenue in Minneapolis, it was going to be a warmer vibe with Couch headlining a R&B infused evening.

The opener was Stephen Day, who we just saw in September opening for Kaleo. Day’s mix of funk and R&B rock was a perfect match for the headliner. With the EP Gold Mine still pretty recent, Day was continuing to build new fans. That R&B sound was pervasive on Hey Lady and Day’s charm and solid vocals brought the audience in more. Some great funky keyboards from Alexander Rice on Kinda Cowgirl led to some wicked guitar licks in the middle. Playing the title track of the EP had the crowd in full clap along mode, with Day in smooth operator mode on that repeated Gold Mine lyric. Day had the audience singing and the cheers at the end of the number were pretty intense.

Credit to Day for his charismatic performance. He had a natural way of getting full audience participation in a way that many more established bands struggle with. All This Space was a great example, where he had both clapping and singing from the vast majority of the audience. It also happens to be a banger of a song with Rice’s keyboards adding a key ingredient to the mix. We got a Christmas song(!), It’s Christmas All Over, but it was in the same vein and a pretty danceable funk sound. Sweet Ice Tea was a little more country influenced number, but let Day go across his vocal range. Finishing up an excellent and joyful set, Stephen Day headed to merch to greet some of those brand new fans.

The headliner, Couch, was next to the stage. The Boston based band is freshly out on their Big Talk Tour, with this stop at first Avenue only being the fourth of a long national and international tour that will take them well into 2026. Though they have several EP releases, Big Talk is their debut full length album. The band was a seven piece (vocals, guitar, bass, trumpet, saxaphone, keyboards, and drums) had that bit of R&B, with the brass backup. Vocalist Tema Siegel was flying from the start with What Were You Thinking, which also included some very well timed lighting effects. The band was clearly excited and the feed forward of energy with the audience was palpable. Jessie was one the crowd had been waiting for and had some fabulous bass work from Will Griffin and a synth sounding keys solo interlude from Danny Silverston and the crowd was going ballistic.

A quick break had the band ask if anyone in the crowd had seen them when they opened for Cory Wong, and a good chunk of the crowd seemingly had. As part of their first headliner tour, guitarist Zach Blankstein informed the crowd the band had instant cameras to pass around, with the added touch that if you bought a print, the proceeds went to Rosie’s Place, a women’s shelter in Boston. Poems was a high powered song, cleverly followed by the lower key Slow Burn, showing a good pacing and sequencing from Couch. That brass sound was key supporting sound, giving a varied depth. The stripped down soul singer sound of Autumn had a fair amount of the crowd singing along, as the rest of the band started up to fill out that sound. We also got extended solos, first on trumpet from Jeffrey Pinsker-Smith, followed by sax from Eric Tarlin. (Side note: I really appreciate it when the rest of the band get out of the way for these solo moments. The members of Couch took a seat at the raised platform at the back and truly gave center stage for those solos.)

Transparent had some great drumming from Jared Gozinsky, and also had the lyrics for the name of the album and tour. It ended with the brass, with Siegel in full dance mode. Again, big props to the lighting scheme and crew making that happen. The band exited stage to allow drummer Gozinsky his extended solo before coming back on for Still Feeling You, a light number on the subject of a possible re-hook up. We got a series of switches between those higher energy songs paired with slower, slightly jazzy R&B numbers in the latter part of the set (one of which had the audience taught three part harmony that actually worked). So Myself broke that streak, with high energy most of the way out and was a great example of Couch’s hooks as a band, with Siegel’s vocals leading the way, but with the multi-layered instrumental work. (I Wanted) Summer with You was the end of the main set with great bass and a bit of syncopated instrumental work and the crowd getting to take vocals for a bit. Couch quickly came back for the encore, ending with Easy to Love, going out in a blaze of energy and ending with sports event like blasts of smoke at the corners of the stage. Couch lined up for the bow and to thunderous applause, left for merch and the end of the night.