LIVE: JR JR Kicks Off Tour at House of Blues

JR JR kicked a tour for their new singles, in preparation for an inevitable album going into next year.  It was the Chicago staple the House of Blues the band chose for their opening night.  The crowd gathered throughout the night and the theatre was packed come show time, following opener Hembree.  

Lead singer Josh Epstein opened the show by addressing the audience about their new tour and music. “So we’re going to play most of the album for you, throughout the year those songs will come out; and so will also other songs that we write because we think it might be better not to take a year off anymore," he said.

Among those new songs were the currently available singles "Control (Secretly Sorry)", "Clean Up", and "Same Dark Places."  Before going into "Clean Up" Josh said about the song, “I went to a party, and ended up leaving at like 10:30 in the morning.  I then started writing lyrics for this song. You don’t have to be sad about it, because I think it’s kind of a beautiful thing. Everyone needs to have those nights.”

It wasn’t just new music that JR JR brought to the show, however, as some big news was dropped concerning JRJR’s other half Daniel Zott's personal life.  Josh said, “Dan’s tired, can I say it?  He’s adopted two children this year.  So he’s been a busy boy.”  Dan replied, “Not busy making the babies, just taking the babies. We literally adopted them a day before we left for the tour, which was today so yesterday.”  The crowed immediately broke out in applause following the news.  

The discussion about the new baby didn’t end there however as Josh immediately broke into a story about before the adoption was final, “And I do have a cool story about them. One of them while they were fostering them…  you ever have a crush like on someone from a TV show or something?  Everyone’s kind of had that. I was walking down and I made a joke, do you think I can buy cigarettes and beer while holding a baby?  Then some one said to me, did you steal that baby? And this girl from this TV show that I thought was so pretty was walking by and just gave me this awful face.  It was the most embarrassing way to meet some one ever.”

JR JR also played a lot of songs from their self-titled album, like "James Dean", "Hypothetical", and their encore "Gone".  Some covers were mixed in as well, including a slowed down version of "Love Fool".  

One last highlight from the night was when the band brought up two audience members who were meant to be off rhythm or bad at instrumentation.  They did their job right as Daniel and Josh would point to them when the time was right to mash on the keyboard as the band played regularly.  This is the first stop of many this year for JR JR as they roll out their tour and album.  See all of JR JR's upcoming tour dates here, and listen to their latest single below!