Cage the Elephant Scoots into Target Center on Neon Pill Tour

Last updated on September 17th, 2024 at 12:29 pm

Cage the Elephant scooted into Minneapolis’s Target Center on Monday during a forty-five city tour. “Cage” had special guests Bakar and Young the Giant on their 24th stop of the Neon Pill tour.

Vlad Holiday opened the concert with smooth beats to warm up the crowd. Bakar continued with the chill vibe to prepare the audience for the rock course of the evening.

Bakar_Target_Center_Copyright_by_Travis_Meier — Bakar performing at Target Center. Photo: Travis Meier.

Next up was Young The Giant, currently on their second straight year of touring. They mentioned they were ready to take a break from the road before Cage invited them on the Neon Pill tour. They shared some new and familiar beats, and celebrated the 10th anniversary of their Mind Over Matter album. As their sophomore album, they said they were afraid to change their sound for it, but reminded the crowd about how important it is to “be yourself.” Given the longevity of that album, it seems they made the right decisions around it.

Young_The_Giant_Target_Center_Copyright_by_Travis_Meier — Young The Giant performing at Target Center. Photo: Travis Meier.

Young The Giant finished up calmly, cueing up the band who got its name from a guy screaming uncontrollably “You have to cage the elephant.”

In an interview with Live Nation, Cage’s lead singer Matt Schultz said,

To me, Neon Pill is the first record where we were consistently uninfluenced, and I mean that positively. Everything is undoubtedly expressed through having settled into finding our voice. We’ve always drawn inspiration from artists we love, and at times we’ve even emulated some of them to a certain degree. With this album, having gone through so much, life had almost forced us into becoming more and more comfortable with ourselves. We weren’t reaching for much outside of the pure experience of self-expression, and simultaneously not necessarily settling either. We just found a uniqueness in simply existing.

Starting with a fiery entrance, Cage entered with the song “Broken Boy” and Schultz rolling out onto stage with a knee scooter. At first I thought his broken foot would hinder his performance, but in the end it only seemed to add to the already impressive start.

Cage_The_Elephant_Target_Center_Copyright_by_Travis_Meier — Cage The Elephant performing at Target Center. Photo: Travis Meier.

Scooting around the stage, Schultz hit every note without missing a beat, even doing full-wheelies on songs such as “No Rest For The Wicked.”

As much as I wanted to see him scooter through the crowd while singing, he left that kind of interaction to guitarist and brother Brad, who leaned into the crowd to the delight of the front-row fans. Eventually, Brad smashed his guitar and started handing parts of it to the crowd for a memorable souvenir.

In closing, the bands on the Neon Pill bill were clean sounding with catchy guitars and fantastic stage presence. Seeing them for the first time, I was surprised by how many songs I knew. The sounds they chose to be themselves with will forever last in the ether of my memory.