Live Recap: Local Natives and Chartreuse at The Riviera
Local Natives returned to Chicago on Friday, September 8th to kick off a new leg of their tour, with support from Chartreuse.
Hailing from Birmingham, England, Chartreuse is composed of Mike Wagstaff, Hattie Wilson, Perry Lovering and Rory Wagstaff, and together the quartet got the crowd primed and ready for Local Natives. Mike and Hattie switched off on vocal duties throughout their set, and their harmonies along with the synths and programing that the band used kind of gave me hints of Sylvan Esso or The Xx. Mike’s vocals also reminded me slightly of Grian Chatten from Fontaines D.C., but overall their sound channels a combination of folk, ambient and electro-pop genres. Chartreuse’s setlist included their songs “Deep Fat” and “Feed Be Fed” from their 2021 EP Is it Autumn Already?, among a few others.
The members of Local Natives made their way onto a dim stage, with giant balloons of the initials “L” and “N” planted in the background of the stage. The show commenced with Taylor Rice, Kelcey Ayer, and Ryan Hahn all huddled around a microphone near the front of the stage to perform an acoustic introduction with the title track of their latest album “Time Will Wait For No One.” (Spoiler alert- this wouldn’t be the only time that night they’d be huddled together near the front of the stage, but more on that later).
Since the tour was in honor of their most recent record, the band fittingly performed a few other newer tracks right off the jump, including “Just Before The Morning” and “Empty Mansions,” which was the live debut of that song. While other tunes from Time Will Wait For No One were sprinkled in throughout the rest of the setlist, we also heard some familiar favorites like the 2017 single “I Saw You Close Your Eyes” and “Coins” from 2016’s Sunlit Youth. The band’s first attempt at the latter was cut short by the PA temporarily blowing out, so the band passed the time with a fully acoustic and unplugged performance of “Who Knows, Who Cares” at the front of the stage, which required the crowd to quiet down.
With the PA back up and running, we got a proper redo of “Coins” before the show continued on. Before performing the Strokes-esque tune “NYE,” Rice took the time to tell the audience the backstory of the song. “Local Natives has a tradition that if one us gets married, we get to be each others’ wedding band. Ryan got married while making this album. We were playing Oasis, The Bee Gees, and this really fast Strokes song. After watching us, he kind of brought this next song to the table and we all jammed it out in the studio in two days, and that’s how ‘NYE’ came to be,” he said.
Following the song’s performance, Rice then took some time to talk about the recent 10 year anniversary of their album Hummingbird, and the band played a few songs from that album, including “Ceilings” and “Columbia.”
For the rest of the night, the energy only continued to escalate, with Rice leaving the stage to join the crowd during “Featherweight.” Fans also went wild during the performance of “Dark Days” which saw Rice and Ayer swapping places on the stage. Before the main part of the set wrapped up, Rice asked the crowd “Do you guys mind if we play ‘Who Knows Who Cares’ one more time?” and we got another full, plugged in performance of that song.
Local Natives kept the good vibes going with a three-song encore. Before performing their second to last song, “Sun Hands,” the band asked everyone to stand up and clap along, which is the least the audience could do during such an uplifting song. Speaking of uplifting, Rice ended up diving into the audience to crowd surf, which has become an epic tradition at their shows over the years. The show wrapped up with another full-house dance party to “When Am I Gonna Lose You.”
If you missed out on all the fun, check out the photo recap below, and see where you can catch Local Natives on tour next here.
