Puma Blue Setlist

Croak Dream
Hold You
Soft Porn
Too Much, Too Much
O, the Blood!
Mister Lost
Pretty
Tapestry
Oil Slick
(Fool)
Want Me
Desire
Moon Undah Water
(She’s) Just a Phase
Only Trying 2 Tell U

Tour Dates

February 28 – Outset – Chicago, IL
March 3 – Lee’s Palace – Toronto, ON
March 4 – Théâtre Fairmount – Montreal, QC
March 6 – Crystal Ballroom – Somerville, MA
March 7 – Irving Plaza – New York, NY
March 10 – Black Cat – Washington, DC
March 11 – Cat’s Cradle – Carrboro, NC
March 12 – The Masquerade (Hell) – Atlanta, GA

It was a beautiful Friday evening in St. Paul, though there were signs of a cold front making their way even as the surface temperature was still warm. Over at Amsterdam Bar & Hall in downtown, there was an equally complex concert in the mix with Puma Blue in town with a surface ambient electronica but mixed with traditional rock instrumentation.

Salami Rose Joe Louis (stage name for Lindsay Olsen) kicked things off. A Californian multi-instrumentalist and music produce, she has multiple albums, including 2025’s Lorings. Coming to stage solo, Salami Rose Joe Louis had a great setup with different electronic modules and computers arrayed on a table in front of her and extending to a chair to her right. The opener was a beautifully ambient number that was then leveled up with her singing. A quieter transition with some keyboards led into the next number. There were some minor effects on the vocals, but the rich and sultry alto tones (a little reminiscent of early blues singers at points) were nicely matched to the more electronic effects of the music. The first break had Salami (as she called herself) thank the crowd and speak very kindly of the headliner, before going back to the music.

Some very heavy bass dominated the next song, but I was impressed by how the music always stayed in the foreground, even with the deep rumbling. A bit of quite impressive harmonica was a clever layer on top of those pulsing electronic tones and Salami Rose Joe Louis had the crowd in near silence with rapt attention. When a dance beat suddenly broke out after an extended quieter section, it took a moment of realization before a number of the crowd started grooving along. The first bit of noticeable 8 bit video game sound effects was fun without being ridiculous and it became clear to me that this was a measured and professional sound. A short break in the action let the crowd finally cheer loudly, and when Salami stated, “Thanks for letting me get a little weird” with the immediate clap back from an audience member of “Get weirder!”, it was clear we were all in safe hands. Some almost backwards sounding keyboard tones really showed off the full range going on here, and it was really a clinic of ambient elctronica, with the added joy of the vocals. Headed back to the quieter backing music let those vocals shine before that nearly throbbing bass was back. This was such an excellent set and Salami Rose Joe Louis had laid out a musical vision in just over forty minutes.

Headliner Puma Blue was up next. The alias for Jacob Allen, they are a London born artist now based in Atlanta. There is a wealth of released music, with 2026’s Croak Dream the most recent album. This was a full band with a quintet (vocals/guitar/electronic, bass, keyboards/saxophone, guitar/sampler, and bass) and they started off dark and slow. Puma Blue had a walkie talkie looking remote that was obviously controlling part of the music in the opener before he moved to guitar. In contrast to our opener, this was a denser and fuller sound. The common pull through was the clear vocals riding over the music. In this case it was a lower tenor that rang pure through fuzzy bass and complicated guitar and elctronica. Soft Porn was another bass heavy song with Puma Blue’s singing a wonderful jazz style contrast. Finally getting a small break, we got a nice call out to the band and then an intro to Too Much, Too Much, dedicating it to the immigrant community in Minnesota. (That title certainly would be how many of us living here would describe these past few months.) The close of that song fell quiet into the vocals and was a nice transition to O, the Blood!, which continued the theme of gloomy lyrics combined with the bass heavy electronica music.

Mister Lost was a spoken word song and felt like it could have been in a David Lynch film or partnered with Nine Inch Nails. That combination of heavy bass (you could feel it in your chest twenty feet away from the stage) and brighter vocals was the sonic theme of the evening and it really worked. Some saxophone broke through that wall of sound and was a nice break out moment and was well imbedded through the remaining songs. An introduction of the band was sweet and the following number Pretty was a pretty distinct number, with a more R&B rather than electronic feel, with Puma Blue in full throated crooning late in the number. tapestry was a slimmed down number and an effective change of pace, with the note that it hadn’t been played live for over a year. (Fool) was another song from the new album and the mild reverb on vocals was a nice effect. Want Me was an older number that had some audience members cheering from the first chords, and it was another jazz influenced love song, and had a lovely sax solo. It was very late in the set, and more of those jazz influences were appearing in a pleasant way. Foregoing the pomp and circumstance of an encore, Puma Blue and company stayed on stage to head towards the close. With (She’s) Just a Phase getting a full, unasked sing along, it was a great moment for band and crowd. Closing with Only Trying 2 Tell You, Puma Blue went a bit into falsetto and blended the guitar work with the electronic samples. The younger crowd gave a warm send off and headed for merch, and that ambient mood kept on even after the music faded out.