It was a bustling day on the UC Berkeley campus when Young the Giant arrived to rock the university’s William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre on their second North American run to promote their 2022 album American Bollywood.
By nightfall, frontman Sameer Gadhia, guitarists Jacob Tilley and Eric Cannata, drummer Francois Comtois and bassist Payam Doostzadeh had hooked the crowd on their thoughtful lyricism and catchy, rhythmic instrumentals, making for a memorable live experience even for those who were less familiar with their work.
The first act to prime the crowd was Rosa Linn, an Armenian singer-songwriter who became popular after participating in the Eurovision Song Contest. She was releasing new music with an EP titled Lay Your Hands Upon My Heart that dropped in June of this year. She guided the crowd through her new discography with compelling live vocals, including a single that has yet to be released.
Unsurprisingly out of everything, the crowd went off to ‘SNAP,’ the song that went viral from the competition. “Be kind,” she said as she left them with as she held the flag of her country to her chest, briefly touching on the turmoil of her people – the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population due to the blockade of the Republic of Artsakh by Azerbaijan.
Milky Chance, the German rock band, brought Berlin dance music to Berkeley as promised. They were the opener that got the crowd consistently moving with catchy rhythms and electronic elements, the flashing LED strip backdrop lighting only contributing to this rave-like atmosphere. Their 2013 hits ‘Flashed Junk Mind’ and ‘Stolen Dance’ were performed back-to-back, and the amphitheater filled with the voices of thousands singing along.
In addition to the elaborate stage setup with drapes, flowers, a disco ball, and even sticks of burning incense, Young the Giant were set on making their time on stage a memorable experience. Video interludes divided their set into the same four acts that American Bollywood is split into – Origins, Exile, Battle, and Denouement – structured after what occurs in the Mahabharata, an ancient Sanskrit epic poem. Gadhia’s somber voice-overs narrated the album’s cinematic visuals, distinguishing each act from one another and evoking contemplation over how these reflected his family’s Indian-American immigrant experience spanning generations.
Origins kicked off with the title track, ‘American Bollywood, ‘ which not only exposed everyone to their newest work but also reflected what they value so profoundly – the persistence of love and family through the hardship of survival in both foreign places and also ones that are meant to be home. The band’s hit from their 2012 self-titled album ‘Cough Syrup’ was also performed during this act, likely an allusion to the band’s origins and what had put them on so many people’s radars in the first place. Gadhia dropped the microphone during this performance, but of course, the crowd was able to help carry this song in particular.
“We walked through jungles and voyaged across oceans[…]all the while dreaming of our glorious return.” These lines helped lead into Act II, Exile, where a person is lost between their old, unfriendly home and a place of golden opportunity, one that is meant to change their life. The first song of this act is ‘The Walk Home,’ a single from American Bollywood, a mournful track – a desperate call sent out to the world for guidance. It was my favorite track off of the album, and Gadhia’s vocals are even more emotional live. Another track from this act was ‘I Bite.’ Gadhia described that it is about his relationship with his father and generational trauma – it is barely talked about, but it’s what he gives visibility to as he draws closer to his hometown show in Orange County, California. Flashlights and lighters flickered to life as Gadhia cried out against his father’s unfair stoicness, which transitioned to an understanding of his sacrifices from the perspective of a man who is now a father.
Following up ‘Firelight,’ a somber ode to change within the Denouement act, the encore wrapped up the show by veering in the opposite tonal direction. They performed four relatively well-known and incredibly catchy songs that even the furthest viewers were dancing to – ‘Superposition,’ ‘Tightrope,’ ‘Silvertongue’ and ‘My Body’ – as the disco ball cast fleeting specks of light that spun across the entire length of the shadowed amphitheater. Even when the topics brushed upon were dark or too real, there was still a celebration of life as well – and it was this last great impression that concert-goers left with that night.
Young the Giant is a band that takes their work, presence, and platform seriously – and rightly so. Gadhia’s world was shaped by his cultural experience, and thus he shapes his art with it. Their music and how they depict themselves reaches thousands of people live per tour night and far more through online streaming – and each person they reach is educated on the realities that others in the world genuinely face, receiving it in a way that is impeccable visually and aurally. On the band’s 2023 summer tour, their selected openers were non-American acts invited to show or speak of their culture with dark and light topics. By far, Young the Giant remains among the most respectable bands today with such an intricately laid out live experience that they blow countless others out of the water.