When you have an all local lineup of music, and particularly when there is something special (a major anniversary, album release, etc.), one of the fun side effects is that you can get a lot of musicians in the crowd. With headliner Real Numbers celebrating an album release, it was exactly that, with a number of familiar faces from other bands in the audience. It was set to be a pedal board driven, indie dream pop evening at Cloudland Theater in Minneapolis and the bubbling audience was certainly stoked for the show.

Shady Cove kicked things off. The duo of Sarah Nienaber and Sarah Rose got their start in Oregon, naming the band after the small town where they first recorded music. They released several albums in the Pacific Northwest, including 2024’s Shady Cove Part II. They’ve since relocated to Wisconsin and they came to stage both singing, one on guitar, one on bass, the bassist with keyboards, and the guitarist with electronica. This was dreamy and soothing in a great way, and those dual vocals were a treat. With some programmed backing music and keys work, numbers like Midwest flowed so smoothly. The larger pedal boards were getting worked hard and the different aural effects highlighted the dream pop aesthetic. The lead-in to Overdrive was near perfect and the alto tones on lead vocals was exactly right for this genre. We had some great reverb guitar work on Cool Enough with high tones that cut through the rest of the backing music. These songs rolled over the audience with an ethereal simplicity that belied the work going on to make it happen. Good Time had the bass come off and they keyboards take a more central role. Passenger was the closer and Shady Cove had laid down the gauntlet with a fantastic dream pop opening set.

Next up was Absolutely Yours, a dream pop band who we last saw opening for Daisychain at Zhora Darling in July 2025, not too far from the release of their 2024 album Mirror Maze. The quintet (vocals/guitar, guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums) brought a slightly harder edged indie pop sound and Eros Bow flew with a fun guitar riff and the quick transition had hard drums to immediately start Let It Die, where lead vocalist Bridget Collins’ level expression and vocals were a plus with all of the music behind it. The guitar and bass combo entrance on Desire Path was a full and Absolutely Yours was driving things forward in a compelling way. Just when you thought you had their sound pinned down, we got a lengthy keyboard entrance which changed things up and the band had grabbed the audience’s attention fully. Previewing an upcoming song “There’s a music video for this one!”) for an album to be released in September, Flight Simulator was the band at its best, with full guitar work and good backing vocals. Ending on Diagonal Lines, Absolutely Yours continue to impress as a live act and we’ll watch for their new album.

Headliner Real Numbers, with the self descriptors of “after-punk” and “slumberlnad”, came up to close out the night. The band has been at it since 2007, and here, nearly twenty years later, the release of Was It Always This Way has them continuing in their jangly indie pop. The quintet (vocals/guitar, keyboards/vocals, guitar, bass, and drums) did have an extra bit of dissonance or jangle compared to our other bands, but this continued the dream pop theme of the evening. Twist the Blade was off the new album and had some soaring moments. The synth heavy keys added a little extra oomph to the guitar work and Real Numbers was flying. Rapid fire drums on Star were the draw on that quick hit, and many of the songs were toght and well-contained. Brighter Then had a chill entrance, and the back up vocals from the keyboardist were a solid addendum to the lead singer. The band really picked up the pace with This Empty Frame, which also had a very Brit pop sound to it. This had been an efficient set and ending in Never Never Again really highlighted the supporting keyboard work as the bass also did some heavy lifting in that number. Without leaving stage, we had a final encore and Real Numbers closed on a thumping rendition of Frank Infatuation and had capped off a great slate of music, as they headed back to merch, with their shiny album awaiting.