Los Angeles, CA; This felt like something of a homecoming, the Silversun Pickups stopping off at the world-famous Hollywood Palladium on their latest tour. Coming across as the happiest band in rock (you just try stopping bassist Nikki Monninger from smiling throughout the set, or vocalist Brian Aubert smirking to himself between songs), the band genuinely seemed to enjoy every chord, every drumbeat, every bassline. Aubert always seems too stoked to just be there, and his nostalgic reflections meant that actually being on stage at the venue seemed to be a huge honor him. This was not a rocker, or indeed a band, merely going through the motions. With recent performances on this tour being part of the festival circuit (they played Lollapalooza), the intimacy of the Palladium, if it can be called that, seemed to energize an already potent fire.

Though their set leaned heavily on their most recent offering, the Better Nature LP, with seven of the fifteen songs performed being from that album, they certainly made sure to throw a few of their crowd-pleasers in the mixer, too, notably “Panic Switch”, which raised more than a few plastic beer cups in salute. The crowd was kept on their feet, in more ways than just stomping, by the inclusion of an acoustic, partial rendition of “Growing Old Is Getting Old”, which segued directly into their most famous number “Lazy Eye” even before the encore. As if in homage to their hometown, and their longest-standing fan base, they came back from the encore and went straight into a track from their very first EP, described by Aubert as “as old as it gets for us“, “Kissing Families”. They closed out the evening with an epic performance of “The Wild Kind”, the closer from Better Nature, a fitting way to sign off.

Setlist:

01. Cradle (Better Nature)

02. Well Thought Out Twinkles

03. The Royal We

04. Nightlight

05. Circadian Rhythm (Last Dance)

06. The Pit

07. Little Lover’s So Polite

08. Friendly Fires

09. Latchkey Kids

10. Panic Switch

11. Ragamuffin

12. Lazy Eye

–ENCORE–

13. Kissing Families

14. Dots and Dashes (Enough Already)

15. The Wild Kind