Youth Lagoon – MilkBoy – Philadelphia, Nov 16, 2011

Youth Lagoon is a huge promise.

Led by extremely young though talented front-man Trevor Powers, the band had released, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful albums of the year. The Idaho native Powers fuels Youth Lagoon‘s music with an aching voice narrating lyrics of what we think as deeply personal and revealing autobiographical events. Lamenting experiences associated perhaps with his own anxiety disorders are combined flawlessly with impeccable rhythms crafted by keyboards and bass delivering soft aerial melodies. On stage, Youth Lagoon’s performance hides the childish and almost immature appearance of Powers, providing a collection of songs that are difficult to describe, but that for sure dance around the fine line between nostalgic and hopeful.

The band is capturing a lot of attention crafting their tour with small eclectic venues combined with sold-out presentations at renowned stages, including NYC’s Mercury Lounge. Last week, they played the small MilkBoy lounge in Center City Philadelphia. A short 8-piece set list comprised of most of his album “The Year of Hibernation” was played that night. Due to the bizarre set-up at the MilkBoy, there was no encore leaving “Daydream” out of the list for the night.

I have no doubts that we’ll hear more from Powers and Youth Lagoon in the future. The band is one of those rare jewels that we stumble onto from time to time. We’ll be anxiously waiting to hearing back from them.

I leave you as usual with the set-list for his recent show in Philly plus a couple of clips, one of “July” from a live session and one from “17” as played in a store in Los Angeles early this month.

Enjoy,

MM

(@MMLeiner)


Youth Lagoon – Setlist
MilkBoy Philadelphia
Nov 16, 2011

Cannons
Posters
17
The Hunt
Bobby
Montana
Afternoon
July

July


17