Folks settling in early on Sunday evening were missing a hell of a time at the Fillmore in downtown Minneapolis. The one-two British punch of The Struts & Barns Courtney were in town, and you pretty much couldn’t ask for a better combination of over-the-top high energy rock goodness than that billing. Endless sing-a-longs, a few crowd dives, and lights galore lead to an explosive night of high octane music goodness from both crews.
Barns Courtney lead the charge, opening with “Fun Never Ends” and “London Girls”, two cuts that were actually not off of his recently released concept album Supernatural. Barns is truly a marvel to watch on stage, catapulting himself from side to side of the wide area available and rearing his head back like a wild animal as he crooned with every ounce of energy he had. After a few older tracks, they dipped into some newer material with recent singles “National Treasure” (lead song off the aforementioned Supernatural) as well as the eponymous “Supernatural”. The charisma of Barns plus his backing band goes without saying – there’s an effortless charm that inspires a dumb grin on your face from pretty much the moment they start playing til the very end, and part of that is just how incredibly loud and inspired they can make Courtney’s catch-driven tunes sound.
From here things really got crazy – at some point, Barns’ shirt was ripped, and in what seemed like rapid succession he sang a song sweating profusely while laying on a cab, then diving into the crowd to be held aloft during “Kicks”, pointing into the sky as the final chorus played out, and then immediately afterwardsclosing out the night with yet another crowd entrance as he asked the crowd to get real low before he made his way into the audience and performed the entirety of “Fire” from the floor, belting every last word he had with adoring fans drowning him from all sides – and then one last instrumental flourish from the band as they gave it a final rock’n’roll flourish.
The Struts closed out the night – taking things from where Barns Courtney started and picking up right where they left off (with a brief intermission). Luke Spiller and co. have been making a name for themselves with one of the wildest live shows around, and this time they brought production to match, a huge array of strobes backing every riff and high note the band had to offer to create a sound that was truly louder than life. There is certainly an argument that a band that would let their intro be Queen’s “We Will Rock You”, but The Struts own the pomp and own the bravado that their English brethren laid out before them as a rock template – and breathe into it life all their own. The band played a very wide variety of material off of albums, opening with “Primadonna Like Me” (off YOUNG&DANGEROUS) and keeping things diverse throughout the night – including with outfits, as Spiller apologized a few songs in that he “couldn’t stand his pants” and needed a moment to be right back, before emerging with an outfit even louder than the last. That’s really what defines them – simple but exceedingly effective rock, and for a solid hour plus they absolutely brought the house down.
