The Suburbs

with Special Guest Kiss the Tiger

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The Suburbs

Often described as a Midwest Roxy Music, but with more humor and rock scruff, The 'Burbs have been making their unique punk-pop-art-dance records and performing off and on ever since the ‘Mpls Sound’ heyday. Founded in 1977, The Suburbs are recognized worldwide as among the original heroes of the "Minneapolis Sound”; a historic music era that saw the emergence of other bands like The Suicide Commandos, Prince, The Replacements, and Hüsker Dü.

Led now by original keyboardist and singer Chan Poling, original drummer Hugo Klaers, and longtime saxophonists Max Ray (also of The Wallets), they are augmented by a supergroup of newcomers: Stevie Brantseg and Jeremy Ylvisaker on guitars, Steve Price on bass, Janey Winterbauer on backup vocals, Rochelle Becker on Bari Sax and Stephen Kung on horns and keys.

Voted among the "100 Most Influential Minnesota Musical Entities of the Twentieth Century" by The Minneapolis Star Tribune, with dance-club hits like “Waiting” and ”Music for Boys", and radio hits like ”Life Is Like”, “Rattle My Bones”, and the 2013 Marriage Equality Anthem, "Love Is The Law”, The Suburbs could be forgiven for resting on their laurels.

But the music and accolades keep on coming. "Turn The Radio On" from their 2013 album Si Sauvage was voted "Song Of The Year" by a poll of local music critics in the Mpls Star Tribune, and The New Yorker magazine, praising their last release Hey Muse!, wrote; “The ensemble maintains its quirky spunk and funky pop energy”.

The Suburbs continue to entertain at the highest level and remain one of the most creative and vital bands out there today, honoring their past and blazing into the future.

Kiss the Tiger

At a time when the world seems intent on pushing us further inward and further apart, Kiss the Tiger are here to rattle our bones and bust us out of our cocoons with some good old-fashioned rock and roll.

Fronted by the magnetic and disarming Meghan Kreidler, who draws on her background in theater to break the fourth wall between audience and band with her righteous fist pumps and high kicks, this is a band that doesn’t just play. They combust. And watching them set the stage ablaze, it’s hard not to feel that tension that’s been built up in all of us these past few years slowly release, too, like a collective exhale set to ratcheting guitars, buoyant bass lines and Kreidler’s perfectly pitched screams. Theirs is a clean-burning fire. Hell, you might even call it healing.

“We want to give the audience an experience that is visceral and jolts them awake—creating community in that moment,” Kreidler notes. “I think that’s a really nice gift you can give people: Just let go.”

Over the past few years Kiss the Tiger have set the Twin Cities ablaze, and there’s nary a club, block party, park amphitheater or backyard that they haven’t transformed with their commanding live shows. And their rigorous performance schedule has paid off: The band has never sounded tighter or more certain of its mission. Kreidler is backed on stage by her longtime partner and creative foil, Michael Anderson, on rhythm guitar, plus lead guitarist Bridger Fruth, bassist Paul DeLong, and drummer Jay DeHut.

Their sets are often accompanied by sing-alongs to regional hits like the hard-knocking “Motel Room,” their ode to pandemic loneliness, “I Miss You,” or their pleading anthem “Hold On to Love,” all of which have become instantly recognizable to locals thanks to regular airplay on the tastemaking public radio station 89.3 The Current. (“Hold On to Love,” specifically, spent a whopping nine weeks at No. 1 on The Current’s Chart Show and was inducted into the Chart Show Hall of Fame.)

Their latest album, Vicious Kid, is a tour de force through the band’s increasingly sophisticated songwriting, which is handled jointly by Kreidler and Anderson. There are plenty of moments where they embody the spirit of late ‘70s new wave punk, like in the ridiculously fun “Who Does Her Hair?” But they have started weaving in softer textures, too, like the crooning and feminist alt-country ballad “Grown Ass Woman” or the skeletal and simmering “Out of My Mind.” Unsurprisingly, Vicious Kid was named one of the Best Minnesota Albums of 2021 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and highlighted as their longtime critic Chris Riemenschneider’s personal favorite that year.

In addition to exploring a wider variety of sounds and genres, Vicious Kid also features some of Kiss the Tiger’s most thought-provoking lyrics to date. In “Grown Ass Woman,” Kreidler pleads, and then demands, that she be allowed to cut her own path in this world—a message that dovetails seamlessly with Kiss the Tiger’s approach to making music. “The angel of death wants me to draw another breath/But angel won’t you leave me alone,” she sings and sighs. “Even near the end not a foe or a friend/Is gonna tell me what to do.”

In addition to headlining their own barn-burning shows, Kiss the Tiger have also been tapped to open for prominent acts like Lake Street Dive, The Suburbs, Ike Reilly, Jackie Venson, Black Joe Lewis, and Daughtry. They have also brought their act on the road to open for Philly’s Low Cut Connie, Austin’s Emily Wolfe, and fellow Minneapolis indie favorites Bad Bad Hats. Given how quickly they’ve won over the Twin Cities, Kiss the Tiger are poised to roar into more markets soon. Their transcendent, heart-forward rock and roll is right on time.

[Andrea Swensson]