For me, Lord Huron has always been the perfect road trip music. Their dulcet and airy tones are perfect for the vast open fields and rolling hills that you’ll encounter when driving aimlessly into the day. I liken them to a less folksy Fleet Foxes with tinges of indie rock thrown in. Perfect music for the first good weather weekend Minnesota has had in about, I don’t know, around six months.
I actually got called to do this show just three hours before the opener was about to go on. So, it was an adventure to gather all my things and make my way to the palace theater. St. Paul was its usual quiet self on Sunday afternoon, but once I got closer to The Palace, it was abuzz with fans ready to hear Lord Huron.
Lord Huron themselves were just two days fresh from releasing their most recent effort Vide Noir. It’s actually a little bit of a departure from their previous work that lead singer and songwriter Ben Schneider initially conceived. The first two albums drew a lot of their inspiration from the natural awe and wonder of the Great Lakes, hence the name Lord Huron. This led to a bright, airy sound that was very folksy. Vide Noir departs a little bit from this formula, and while folk elements are kept, this album features an indie rock side with loud, punchy guitars being prominently featured on some of the tracks. Some of the songs even give off a sort of classic rock vibe. “When the Night is Over” and “Wait by the River” are the most prominent examples of this.
When the set began, The Palace was awash in a green light that featured the same mysterious symbol from the album cover of Vide Noir. The general set design stayed on the dark side, emphasizing the title of the album, “Vide Noir,” which translates to Black Void. Meanwhile, the songs were a mix of Lord Huron’s last two albums. The set started with “Ancient Names (Part 1)” which deeply emphasized Lord Huron’s new distorted and more produced sound and oscillated back and forth between that and the more folksy Strange Trails album. Lord Huron’s debut album Lonesome Dreams was drawn from sparingly, with only “Ends of the Earth” getting a feature during the main set.
This was of no issue to the audience through, as they remained deeply engrossed in the music throughout the whole set. In one section of the show, a unique instrument was brought out. The bassist used a Theremin to play a section of the show. For those of you not familiar was a Theremin (which was me during the show) it’s an instrument that has no physical input. It simply consists of two antennas that are designed to control volume and pitch. The bassist would move his hand up & down and forward and back to compose his melody. It was fascinating to watch and it sounded positively alien, which was probably the point.
The show ended with an encore of two of Lord Huron’s best-known songs. “The Night We Met,” which was featured on the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, and the aptly titled final song “Time to Run,” after which Ben and the rest of the band took a bow and said goodbye to a very happy Palace Theater. All in all, Lord Huron played a very thematic and excellent show that thoroughly entertained. It wasn’t quite the light and folksy Lord Huron I was used to, but it was still a very fun show to attend.
Set List:
Ancient Names (Part I)
Meet Me In The Woods
Hurricane
Never Ever
Ends of the Earth
Dead Man’s Hand
Back From The Edge
The Balancer’s Eye
Wait by the River
Frozen Pines
Celestial Poem
La Belle Fleur Sauvage
Fool For Love
Ancient Names (Part II)
Way Out There
When The Night Is Over
Vide Noir
The World Ender
ENCORE:
The Night We Met
Time to Run
