New Politics
October 13, 2015
Showbox Sodo- Seattle, WA
The Wilderness Politics Tour kicked off in Seattle, Washington this week at Showbox Sodo. The tour sponsored by Journeys had a variety of amazing energy filled artist ranging from solo artist to bands. The lineup consisted of Co-Headliners New Politics and Andrew McMahon in The Wilderness, and two openers The Griswolds and LoLo.
The first on the lineup was female solo artist Lauren Pritchard known professionally as LOLO. Although she only had about half an hour to play she packed her set with a variety of her songs from her album Wasted in Jackson and Comeback Queen EP and warmed the crowd up for the next bands on the list.
After LOLO performed, indie rock band from Sydney, Australia known as The Griswolds came out jumping and dancing. The four piece band seemed to be really stoked for the first day of tour and to be in Seattle as did all the rest of the bands. The band played singles such as Beware The Dog, Red Tuxedo from their studio album Be Impressive. After their set, the lead singer went down to talk to eager fans in the front row.
The first of the co-headliner’s to play was Andrew McMahon in The Wilderness. Andrew McMahon was the singer in bands Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin. McMahon has been through a lot including Lymphoblastic Leukemia but that didn’t slow him down. He changed from Jack’s Mannequin to Andrew McMahon in The Wilderness and recorded an EP. McMahon also started a non profit for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society under the name Dear Jack Foundation. McMahon is now touring this fall and in Seattle he had a variety of stage props. He came out with a beach ball and somehow got it floating in mid air and put a projection of a girl on it during his song Rainy Girl. He also had gigantic confetti balloons that he gave to the crowd that exploded during a song simultaneously and a parachute that he had the crowd shake around. Although they changed the name of the band, they still played many songs from when they were Jack’s Mannequin such as Swim and La La Lie. He also played his hit song Cecelia and the Satellite which was named after his daughter and during his last song Synesthesia, he got in the crowd and the crowd went crazy dancing and singing along.
The last band to play was New Politics, a three piece band from Copenhagen, Denmark. Half of the crowd got the opportunity to meet the guys before the show and get early entry since they bought from their merch store before the show, which is a cool opportunity and all the lucky fans had huge smiles on their faces while walking into the venue.Once the alternative rock band came on their was an insane amount of energy coming from both the band and the fans. The band came out dancing and jumping with their band flag. A few songs into the setlist, the singer David Boyd started to break dance which is one of their known things to do and the crowd loved it. The crowd loves Boyd and Boyd loves the crowd which he showed when he got into the crowd multiple times throughout the set. During the set they played a variety of songs from their old albums New Politics and A Bad Girl in Harlem and their newest album Vikings. Some of the songs they played were covers such as Song 2 by Blur and they also had a dance off with a lucky fan while Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean was playing in back. The drummer even came out to do a song he rapped for called Bitch I’m Gold which the crowd thought was hilarious. They ended the night with crowd favorites such as Harlem and Tonight You’re Perfect as an encore and everyone sang along and danced.
Honestly if you love going to shows with a lot of energy then this is definitely a show you shouldn’t miss if it’s coming to a city near you. Every act on the lineup had an abundance of energy and gave off that energy to the crowd by connecting with them physically and emotional by getting into the crowd and playing crowd favorites. This tour is far from boring so check it out if you can!
Review by Kianna Marshall
New Politics
Andrew McMahon
The Griswolds
LOLO
