Dawes’ and Lucius’ Joint Shows Reset the Bar for What a Collaborative Tour Can Be: Concert Review
31.03.2024 - 22:47
/ variety.com
Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Co-headlining tours are a dime a dozen (give or take hundreds of dollars in tacked-on fees). But actual collaboration on the road is another thing, with most bands too protective of their brands to hand over very much of their nightly set times to truly share someone else’s vision.
In a joint road show, we cherish the moments when one band’s lead singer joins the other for an encore number or two. But actual merged identities? That’s something that happens in Altman or Kieslowski films, but rock ‘n’ roll shows, not so much.
Dawes and Lucius did a rare thing, then, in employing the buddy system for a tour that wrapped up Sunday with an almost-hometown show at Pappy + Harriet’s, out in the hills above and beyond Palm Springs. Although elaborate advanced notifications of how things would go down didn’t hurt, the Tag Team Tour moniker was a decent indication that this would not be your stock “we’ll alternate headlining status” kind of two-band bill, but that the two artists would be hunting for glory in the slight humility of a completely shared space for the better part of three hours.
If you were a fan of either act, you’d have to have an appreciation for how these artists complemented one another. But if you happen to already recognize both of them as best-in-class examples of how strong old-fashioned rock virtues can continue to be in the 2020s, then this was a match made in heaven, or at least the highest parts of the high desert.
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