A Night with Mother Mother & Cavetown in Los Angeles
Article written by and photos by Natalie Ryan
On June 8th, Mother Mother and Cavetown’s massive North American co-headliner made a stop at The Torch at the LA Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles. Only the second show of the tour, everything ran smoothly and was a perfect way to start off the summer. They were joined by Meet Me @ The Altar, who started off the night with their great energy and fun songs. The all-female pop-punk trio has been on my list to catch for a few years now, and I only wish I could’ve seen them for longer than their opening set. The song I enjoyed the most live was “Say It (To My Face)”, an upbeat “diss track” to online trolls.
Find Meet Me @ The Altar at their individual links below:
Next up was Cavetown, coming on stage to a mushroom backdrop and a tree stump platform for the mic stand. Cavetown is also known as Robbie Skinner, a singer-songwriter born in Oxford and raised in Cambridge, England. Skinner and his touring band came out wearing matching green overalls with insects on them, bugs being a common Cavetown theme. There were numerous diehard Cavetown fans in the audience, many wearing frog hats, holding plush frogs, and wearing mushroom or bug themed outfits. Cavetown songs tend to be very personal and tender, not to mention relatable to the fans that form a deep connection to them. During “This is Home”, someone in the audience gave Skinner a transgender pride flag and they held it up for the rest of the song. Skinner is trans, using he/they pronouns, and uses his music to explore themes of gender and sexuality, another relatable connection point for fans. Fresh off of EP release “little vice” in May, they played “let them know they’re on your mind” and “alone”, as well as a mix of older and newer songs. When “Boys Will Be Bugs” started playing, the crowd went the craziest it had been all night, only to be amplified immediately afterwards for “Devil Town” as the last song of the set. While I’m not a huge fan like many of those in the crowd, Cavetown put on a great show and was easy to listen to and enjoy as someone that doesn’t know all the words. My favorite part of the set was to see the fans in the very front just completely lose their minds screaming to all the words; it was clear how much that night meant to them.
By the time Mother Mother was about to come on, it had gotten dark. The Canadian indie rock band, consisting of Ryan Guldemond on guitar and vocals, Molly Guldemond and Jasmin Parkin on vocals and keyboard, Mike Young on bass, and Ali Siadat on drums, formed in 2005. Opening with “Nobody Escapes”, the first track off their ninth studio album “Grief Chapter”, released earlier this year. Everything happening in their set was flawless, from the dramatic red lighting to Molly and Jasmin’s voices layered together. They played their song “The Matrix”, and added in some of “Where Is My Mind?” by Pixies, a sound that really suits Mother Mother. Ryan dedicated “Body”, off their second studio album, to anyone that doesn’t feel comfortable in their own skin. He also talked about how much he loved playing music with his sister, Molly, before they played “Sleep Awake”, the first song he wrote for her, which features her singing prominently.
They played a stripped-down medley of “Dirty Town / Neighbour / Wisdom / Ghosting / Little Pistol / It's Alright”, a highlight of the entire show. They continued with the stripped down set up for “Oh Ana” and “Wrecking Ball” before transitioning back to the full band setup during “Verbatim”. They played one of their biggest hits, “Hayloft”, which started getting noticed twelve years after its release on TikTok. It tells the story of a young couple hiding from one of their fathers, who has a gun. The success of the song twelve years later caused the band to release a sequel, “Hayloft II”, the story ending with revenge as the protagonist kills her father for murdering her lover
After this, the band left the stage, only to come back to play “Burning Pile”, another crowd favorite. As the red confetti cannons went off, the band and the crowd gave the last song their all before the night was over. Mother Mother put on an amazing show for fans and strangers alike and I would absolutely recommend seeing this tour before it’s over.
