The final show of a tour can either be disastrous or it can be glorious. The final date of Cage the Elephant and Manchester Orchestra’s joint tour, which happened to be at a sold-out Showbox SoDo, was almost all of the latter and none of the former.
Headliners Cage the Elephant delivered a spirited, visceral set with an energy level that was amped up to 11. The band was tight and dialed in all night but not so dialed in to the point where the show sounded like a carbon copy of their records. Meaning there was enough grit and sloppiness in the mix to make the performance feel like a set of straight-forward rock put on by a garage band gone big, which is pretty much the best way to describe Cage the Elephant.
Singer Matthew Shultz was a frenetic ball of energy for the duration of Cage the Elephant’s 75-minute set. Before the first two songs of the set were over he had managed to stage dive into the audience and crowd surf twice. He managed to rein it in a bit after those two songs but he still displayed a bit of frontman volatility throughout the set by jumping and bouncing around and doing quite a bit of screaming.
Shultz’s screaming was the one blemish on what was otherwise a textbook example of what a triumphant rock ‘n’ roll club show should be like. The energy and enthusaism was cranked up, the kids were worked into a sweat-fueled frenzy and the music was the type of driving, full-throttle rock that is both engaging and exciting.
However, while the constant screaming was initially entertaining and could have been attributed to Shulz’s flair for showmanship, after the fouth song it got old pretty quikly. It never ruined his vocal performance or managed to become unbareable, but it became a bit grating and annoying after a while.
Manchester Orchestra wasn’t as energetic as Cage the Elephant but they were just as musically engaging as Cage with a set of impressive and forceful songs. The tour was a co-headlining jaunt but it was clear after the tour’s final stop that Cage the Elephant is not only the better live band as far as putting on a show is concerned but that Cage was the right choice to close down the two bands time together.
