Live Review: The Bigger Lights "Caffeine & Skinny Jeans" Tour

written by Jared Ohgren

On August 24th, I went to the Virginia date of The Bigger Lights’ first headlining trek, the Caffeine and Skinny Jeans Tour. The band brought out Weatherstar, You, Me and Everyone We Know, and The Graduate with them on this tour. The tour date before and after mine were also graced with two extra bands as openers, pop rock newcomers, Amely (Fearless) and We Are the In Crowd (Hopeless).

WEATHERSTAR
After the two openers the first band, Weatherstar, played 5 of the 6 songs off of their self-titled EP. The band is only made up of two people but had a full band filling in for guitar and bass. Weatherstar didn’t have as big of a grip on the crowd as the other two openers probably because Weatherstar has never been around in the Virginia area and I personally have never heard of them until the day of the tour. Their music was the poppiest of the night and their guitar was louder than needed so it was hard to tell how Cameron Walker’s singing voice was but I’m sure it was on key and everything. Their last song, “Postcards,” stood out the most to me because it’s an acoustic song and they translated it well from acoustic to full band.

YOU, ME, AND EVERYONE WE KNOW
The band that impressed me the most was You, Me, and Everyone We Know. They took a long time to set up but that’s probably due to the fact that they have 6 people in their band which was a blessing and a curse. With 6 people in a band you don’t have that much room to move around or do anything out of the ordinary on stage. Fortunately, that didn’t stop front-man Ben Liebsch or the rest of the band. Their onstage energy was some of the best I’ve ever seen. Whether it was how into the music the band was or how far into the crowd Ben could get, the band captivated the crowd better than any band that night. Their set was 7 songs which was pretty lengthy for only being support for the tour. You, Me, and Everyone We Know played two songs off of their upcoming full-length those being, “Somethings Don’t Wash Out” and “Bootstraps.” Everyone in the band sounded great did everything to perfection which was great to see.

THE GRADUATE
After You, Me, and Everyone We Know was the most misplaced band on any tour I’ve ever seen, The Graduate. I have no idea why they were picked to play on this tour but I’m glad they did. Though The Graduate was quite boring in the realm of stage presence, they played perfectly and didn’t miss a note or beat in any of their songs. The played 6 songs and played two songs off their new album. The one thing about The Graduate’s set that stood out the most was their closing song, “Don’t Die Digging.” For the last chorus of the song they brought out everyone from the other bands and each two people brought out a snare drum and a cymbal. Then everyone proceeded to do this tribal sounding drum beat much like you hear at the end of the song. It was so surreal and nobody saw it coming at all. The last chorus of the song also had guest vocals from Ben Liebsch of You, Me and Everyone We Know. I would advise The Graduate and You, Me and Everyone We Know to tour together in the future because they both put on an amazing set and mesh well together.

THE BIGGER LIGHTS
Finally the headliner, The Bigger Lights, came on. Since the show was a hometown show for the band a lot of the people who came were very excited to see them play. They played a very long set with very little breaks in between songs. With a total of 11 songs it felt like the set was never going to end. The Bigger Lights played a majority of their new, self-titled record and threw in two old songs off of their Fiction Fever EP which was nice. It would’ve been cool to see more old stuff since they were playing a hometown show but I’m not complaining.The band’s stage presence was definitely there but singer and frontman, Topher Talley, has turned into quite the stage performer. He kept throwing his mic stand around and doing a bunch of mic stand tricks which was cool but very cliché. He also swung his mic around which was way better than doing mic stand tricks but the mic swinging didn’t warrant for the type of music they play. All in all their set was very good and well thought out and they preformed all the songs as best as they could.

The show as a whole was great as all the bands played very well and made the whole experience worth while. Maybe the only gripe I have about the show is that it was a little long. With two openers and The Bigger Lights 11-song set the show felt dragged out. However, if you have never seen any of these bands live, I do recommend seeing them as soon as possible because you will not regret it.