Hippo Campus February 10 Concert Review


Hippo Campus Performing
Hippo Campus is one of my favorite bands, and I've been planning to go to this concert for a while now. The night was pretty rainy, and I was happy when I got into Brooklyn Steel- my first time at this venue. They were opened by Sure Sure, pretty much an American Phoenix, who mixed various keyboards, guitars, and percussion to make some decent music. They made a few jokes about everything seeming like snacks, semi-engaged the crowd, and left after a couple songs.

The Gigantic Brooklyn Steel Fan
Then Hippo Campus came on, opening with their song Suicide Saturday. They had an amazing amount of energy, and their songs were much better live for two reasons. The first was that they played them very loud (a bass note that almost knocked me down was played after one of the first songs), and the second was their only touring musician, a trumpet player who perfectly complimented all their songs. They played almost an album's worth of new material, which was good but I couldn't entirely gauge because I only heard it once. Notably, the lead guitarist sang a few of the new songs, and was pretty good. They also played quite a few b-sides, and all of their a-sides, too. The funniest moment of the show came when they started one of my favorites, Baseball, and shouted out the Yankees. After much booing(myself included), they extended that to the Mets and then gave up and dedicated it to the Knicks too, and misleading called it Tennis. That didn't matter, because everyone new every song, and the crowd basically sung South for them. They ended the concert with a Planned parenthood-dedicated Buttercup, which was greeted enthusiastically by the audience. The encore was Violet, a song I never pegged to be an anthem but still... "Violet/ Trying to start a riot" brought a fantastic ending to one of the best concerts I've ever seen.

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