DREAMERS Take The US By Storm With Their Cross Country Tour

AUTHOR: Breanna Krosch

The hardworking alt-rock trio, DREAMERS wraps up their fall 2019 tour on December 6th. The trio has pretty much slid from one tour to the next ever since 2014, playing venues ranging from 400 cap bars to stadiums, even making their debut earlier this year at Reading and Leeds Festivals. DREAMERS has invited the alt-indie trio Arrested Youth as an opening act for the entire tour, as well as rock group Irontom (from 10/25 to 11/18), and American Teeth—the alt-pop project from “emo cyborg” Elijah Noll—finishing out the tour (from 11/19 to 12/6). I was able to attend two dates, The Slowdown in Omaha, NE (11/23) and The Record Bar in Kansas City, MO (11/26), this review will be based on the Kansas City show.

Doors opened at 7 with the DREAMERS VIP heading inside at 6:30 for a meet and greet, Q&A sessions and an exclusive performance of some unreleased songs.

American Teeth hit the stage at 8 and they were ready to put on a show. This was their first tour as a band and their third show of the tour (due to some cancellations of other shows) but you would have never guessed it. Drummer David Diaz (introduced on stage as “Trips”) and Guitarist Emilie Brandt walked on stage while an audio recorded message played. Then singer Elijah Noll jumped out on stage and the trio went right into ‘Love Yourself’, an unreleased song. After finishing the first song, Noll began to introduce his band and a fan yelled out “Happy Birthday” to Trips, followed by an impromptu performance of happy birthday by crowd. The three piece then went into another high energy unreleased song called ‘Gemini.’ Most of the people in the audience were pretty pumped by this point, but anyone who wasn’t definitely started paying more attention after Noll walked off stage and came back holding a cake that was practically on fire exclaming, “Wow, we got pyrotechnics in this fucking room.” He then led the audience into another round of ‘Happy Birthday’ for Trips. After that excitement, the trio performed their own version of MIA’s ‘Paper Planes’ and ended their set with their two released songs, ‘Chemicals’ and ‘2late.’ By the end of their set, everyone was moving around and cheering. Audience members were having the time of their life while screaming the iconic line “It’s too late to die young,” back to Noll. It was an impressive performance for such a new band on their first tour together. Their songs are definitely worth checking out and I can say without a doubt, that they left that show with quite a few new fans.

Following American Teeth, was the alt-indie trio Arrested Youth, consisting of singer Ian Johnson, guitarist Aaron Shadrow, and drummer Brett Daniel. Shadrow played a few chords as Johnson ominously walked on stage with a mask covering his face. The crowd was definitely thrown off a bit by the masked appearance, but fans of the trio helped to keep the mood up during ‘Sob Story,’ the first song of their set. Then, Johnson left the stage while tour manager, Cody Santos, set up a make-shift dining table, dressed up like a waiter. Johnson returned to the stage and the trio took a bit of a break from the music to perform a little skit. During this skit, Shadrow confronts Johnson about crying backstage following a breakup from his girlfriend. Johnson, still bummed out, questions whether he can continue the show and the two go into a short song following the skit.

Having shown the audience a bit of their humor, they get back into the music with ‘Expectations,’ a song I’m sure many in the crowd could relate to in some way. The three piece then played ‘Riot,’ off their first album, followed by a humor-filled song about being the opening band that they had written only a few days before. This unnamed song felt similar to IDKHow’s ‘Nobody Likes The Opening Band,’ and addressed how expectations of greatness can lead to feelings of inadequacy. However, the band managed to deliver this song in a light-hearted way and receive crowd participation despite the stripped down feel of the song. With that, the boys perform their last two songs, ‘What You’re Made Of’ and ‘The Kid I Used to Know,’ garnering the most crowd participation of the set. During ‘What You’re Made Of,’ Johnson took the opportunity to showcase fans in the audience by giving them a chance to scream into the microphone during the choruses. Tour manager, Cody, decided to make another appearance during this song, only this time he was in a full panda suit dancing in the background. During an instrumental break, Shadrow decided to jump into the crowd, jamming out while being held up by fans. There wasn’t much time for the crowd to recover from that before the trio went into the high energy ‘The Kid I Used To Know’ where Johnson followed Shadrow’s example and crowd surfed as well. Overall, the band gave an amazing performance and had an amazing stage presence. They were able to easily switch from high energy songs, to fun skits, and back. Their crowd interaction was amazing and helped keep everyone’s attention on the trio as everyone waited to see what would come next.

The crowd waited an anxiety inducing 30 minutes for DREAMERS while listening to hits such as Smashmouth’s ‘All Star’ and All Time Low’s ‘Dear Maria, Count Me In.’ Then the lights dimmed and a recorded message started playing through the speakers. DREAMERS walked onto the stage lit by a blue glow from the stage and once they got into their places, they started their set off with ‘SCREWS.’ The upbeat song was a perfect way of starting and was followed with two more upbeat, high energy songs, ‘DIZZY,’ and ‘Listen Out Loud.’ Then they changed the mood a bit and played ‘All Washed Out’ from their EP ‘FLY.’ At the surface, ‘All Washed Out’ seems to match the energy of the other songs, with an upbeat chorus that can easily be screamed back to the band. But the lyrics are a bit more somber, describing how things were better before and hoping to hold onto those fading memories. Following this, the band took a short break and lead singer and guitarist, Nick Wold, took some time to talk to fans in the audience before introducing their next song, the recently released single, ‘Desensitize.’ Wold described the song as being about everything bad in the world and how corporations profit off of the desensitization of the public. The premise behind the song evokes thoughts of The 1975’s ‘Love It If We Made It,’ however the song itself is greatly different, in the best way.

The three piece then played ‘DRUGS,’ ‘Someway, Somehow,’ and ‘Wanna Stay,’ before transitioning with an amazing drum/bass solo by Jacob Wick and Marc Nelson, respectively, while Wold switched out for an acoustic guitar for the next two songs. The first of these songs being the unreleased fan favorite ‘Bleed Through.’ Before playing the song, Wold explained that the idea for the song came after reading an article about a person who survived a jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and felt immediate regret after doing so, as they had finally felt something. Wold also explained that suicide was a topic very close to the band and with that, he went into the emotionally charged song. The next song was an excellent cover of Radiohead’s ‘Karma Police.’ The trio then finished out their set with ‘Vampire In The Sun,’ ‘Painkiller”, and the high energy, dance-around-your-room-at-3am, hit ‘Die Happy.’ This one was probably my favorite to see live. Wold described it as a song about enjoying everything you’ve experienced in life. During an instrumental break in this song, Wold jumped into the crowd and danced with some fans and it was so fun to just watch as everyone danced and sang along together. It the show had ended right after that song, it would’ve been a fantastic end to the entire night. Fans weren’t quite ready for DREAMERS to leave yet, though. The three piece came back for another two songs after chants of “Encore!” followed them off the stage. They ended the night with ‘Wolves (You Got Me),’ and the always enjoyable, fan favorite ‘Sweet Disaster.’

Overall, it was an amazing show. The three bands were all fantastic in their own ways and had great stage presence. You could feel how happy they all were to be there performing for everyone. From loud disjointed choruses of ‘Happy Birthday’ to entertaining skits and an amazing light show, it was a great show. And the talented musicians performing such great songs just made it even better. If you have the chance to see any of these bands live, I highly recommend doing so. In the meantime, check out their music, you will not regret it.

Keep up with all three bands

American Teeth:

Instagram @AmericanTeethOfficial

Twitter @American_Teeth

Arrested Youth

Instagram @ArrestedYouth

Twitter @ArrestedYouth

DREAMERS

Instagram @DREAMERSJoinUs

Twitter @DREAMERSJoinUs