Concert Review: Young The Giant at the Germania Insurance Amphitheater
Young the Giant performed alongside Milky Chance and Rosa Linn at the Germania Insurance Amphitheater on July 28. In a stunning display of visuals, they demonstrated the illustrious nature of their new album, American Bollywood.
Written by Rachel Joy Thomas
Photos by Natalie Anspach
Establishing themselves in California, Young The Giant rose to prominence amid other bands like Milky Chance and Local Native as an epitomized industry giant, featuring their songs in TV shows and playing almost everywhere. The group has maintained its popularity for years, sporting over 6,000,000 Spotify streams monthly on almost all of its albums and a diverse range of songs across its headline-making portfolio. When Young The Giant released their newest album, American Bollywood, it showed a new direction for the band, as their first conceptual record and one of the first albums to tell the winding narrative of an Indian Epic within a Westernized format. Sameer Gadhia, the band’s lead singer and one of the first South Asian men to headline venues like the Forum , tells the story of immigration from his perspective. Leading his band through American Bollywood, he formulated a story of his upbringing, calling to attention the perspective of immigrants coming to the United States, facing strife, and ultimately integrating with Western culture.
Before Young the Giant came out at 9:20 p.m., Rosa Linn and Milky Chance performed for two hour-long segments. At 7:02 p.m., the first performance of the night started amid concertgoers finding their seats and exploring the venue. For Linn, there were a few notable workarounds that she faced when performing. The heat was an excruciating 98 degrees during her show, and Linn performed without a band backing up her powerful vocals. Explaining this to the audience, the performer only had her guitarist, Jay, and a looper pedal with her. The performance, with these factors included, was superb. Using the pedal, Linn vocalized percussive elements alongside repeating guitar feeds to formulate her songs. She performed her most popular song, “Snap,” alongside new songs like “Maze.” Even with the painful heat sweltering down, Linn gracefully performed her segment of the show, covering her face to avoid the heat straining her eyes.
After Linn walked off stage, concert technicians set up for the next performer, Milky Chance. The sun was still out when the band started playing, but the temperature was slightly cooler. Starting their set, they performed the song “Synchronize” without introduction, immediately causing concertgoers to stand and clap at the famous indie band. Performing songs off of their new album, Living In A Haze, along with multiple songs from their most popular album Sadnecessary, there was a mix of new and recognizable tracks that kept the crowd entertained. On the floor, people jumped alongside the beat to their popular hits like “Flashed Junk Mind.” Milky Chance’s performance was a highlight of the night, perfectly prepping audience members for Young The Giant’s concert while exciting and captivating the crowd.
The best part of Milky Chance's performance came during the song “Running.” As they started, drummer Sebastian Schmidt slowly gained momentum alongside increasing audio mixing and sound. Lights began to flash as the band steadily increased their tempo. Lead singer Clemens Rehbein instructed the crowd to get on their knees as he slowly knelt towards the ground. Then, as lights flickered throughout the concert venue and the loud burst of synth blared to concertgoers, everyone stood at once as the beat dropped. Immediately following this ear-splitting melody was their last song of the night, “Sweet Sun.” When performed alongside one another, “Sweet Sun” almost melded with “Running,” changing the tone from a grungy, strong-handed synth to a more jubilant mood. Antonio Gregor, one of the band's multi-versed artists, added a fast-paced harmonica performance that finalized the set in a full, magnetizing burst of energy. As Milky Chance left the stage, murmurs of excitement and adrenaline filled the air from both the floor and the seated section of the theater.
As concertgoers resettled in their seats for the next part of the concert, a video began to play on two large screens showing a woman in a green dress sitting on a swing with a monologue that said: "The story started long before we were born, but we don't even know the plot. All we have is a nameless feeling, a restlessness that passes down from one generation to the next, one that asks, 'What does it all mean?'” Cheers erupted from the crowd as the band members took their places, and a string orchestration played the beginning notes of their first song.
The night's first performance was the self-titled track "American Bollywood," followed by "Wake Up," representing the origins of lead singer Gadhia's family. As one of the band's most experimental stage debuts yet, attendees experienced a colorful stage, masterfully representing the different album concepts Gadhia crafted during the pandemic. ”Wake Up” started with glinting blue stage lights, contrasting orange shades, and angelic vocals from Gandhia and guitar from Jacob Tilley and Eric Cannata. Payam Doostzadeh, the band's bassist, stood barefoot as he swayed along with the music and drummer François Comtois' skillful percussive swings.
After these songs, the band surprisingly performed their most popular track, "Cough Syrup,” early into the show. Throughout the venue, every word Gadhia sang featured the backdrop of concertgoers who knew the words by heart. The songs Young the Giant played were almost effortless, memorized to sound almost exactly like their album recordings, whether ten years prior or off of their newest record. As Young the Giant performed "Nothing's Over" from their 2016 album, Home of the Strange, people danced alongside the triumphant bassline and the synth-pop beat. A heavy electric guitar blared after the chorus as Gadhia belted out, "God only knows what I would do to you" The band's shadow illuminated the Germania Amphitheater's back wall, dancing around as they continued playing the song.
The band members took a moment to change their equipment as another video played, showing a montage of the singers alongside the words, "When we began to doubt, we sharpened our axes. The nameless feeling was still there, and this time we wanted to kill it." Suddenly, the stage erupted in orange red light. Rock guitars played as sweat dripped down the foreheads of the band members. Powerfully, Gadhia sang "Dollar $tore," With little sign of fatigue, he shook as words floated from his mouth, illustrating his ability to perform for long periods of time. Sweat rolled down the side of Gadhia’s face as he pumped energy into every word he sang. As the band continued playing hit after hit, the songs' lights, instruments, and ambiance shifted and swayed along with the band members. It never seemed like the band was tired, even through the heat on a summer night.
As pink lights dawned throughout the stage, a cheer erupted when fans began to realize that the band was playing their incredibly popular hit, "Mind Over Matter." People stood on the tips of their toes to watch the band as Gadhia sang, "You know you're on my mind." Some audience members looked awestruck by the power emitting from the band's performance. Couples held each other in the crowd as though it were their favorite love song.
After this, the band slowed down and took a moment to pause the show. Gadhia spoke to the audience, asking them to listen for a moment as he gave a message to Austin.
"This next song is for all of those wordless choruses, those wordless ideas and thoughts in our mind that drive us to do amazing and beautiful, terrible things," Gadhia asked the audience to hold their phones in the air, using them as a light to shine brightly as a way of honoring those wordless moments. "When the drums and the bass come in, I want you guys to put a light in the air." They began to perform a stripped-back version of the song "Firelight.” Early into the track, someone in the floor crowd fell due to the summer heat. Jacob Tilley, one of the band's guitarists, stopped the show and asked security to check up on the person. Keeping the tone casual while still checking on their fans, they made sure everyone in the crowd was okay before continuing the song.
Restarting “Firelight” from the beginning, the band played a quieter and more melancholic track off of their album, Mind Over Matter. People across the amphitheater held their phones in the air, listening along to the song in an almost silent amphitheater. Everyone quietly listened to the strumming of Jacob Tilley's guitar alongside pristine vocals. As the minimalist instrumental rang through the venue, some audience members sat down momentarily while waving their phones above their heads, tired from standing throughout the show.
Following “Firelight,” the band regained energy from the crowd as they played another popular song, “Superposition.” “Superposition” played with a cascade of singing voices from the audience and blue lights, creating a jubilant ambiance from both the crowd and performers as they sang along. Audience members danced gleefully to the harmonic, transcendent quality of the concert. Alongside “Superposition'' came “Silvertongue,” which was the penultimate song of the night. Silvertongue was performed with a similar emphasis, with Gadhia dancing and moving alongside the music, heartily producing the words with incredible strength.
Ending the show, Young the Giant played "My Body" off their debut album in a fiery explosion of movement and sound. As fans stood and jumped to watch the performance of the night's last song, the band burst into the last notes that would play in the theater that night. Everywhere, people began to stir at the last song, and a feeling of recognition came that the show was coming to a close. Then, Young The Giant thanked the audience, drenched in sweat from the heat of the concert, and left the stage.
All in all, audience members were left with a complete, nearly perfect performance that highlighted the beautiful music created by Young, The Giant. Every song was almost identical to its album counterpart when performed live, with a few sporadic vocal inflections from Gadhia that only added to the overall ambiance of the performance and masterfully changed the sound of each performance. Every band member moved together with a sense of unity, playing their instruments with precision and a harmonic sound that made the concert an exceptional display of their newest album, American Bollywood.