Cage The Elephant @ The Pavilion at Star Lake

Cage The Elephant rocked their show at The Pavilion at Star Lake on August 29, 2024 in Pittsburgh, PA. With Young the Giant, Bakar & Willow Avalon to complete the line up, it made for the perfect night.

Willow Avalon

Willow Avalon’s smoky voice and shimmering, West Coast highway-attuned rock style — first introduced on the 2021 single “Drivin” — makes her seem out of another time, like Stevie Nicks reborn at the turn of the millennium. But her quirky, minimal social media presence and lyrical honesty make her fit in well with her singer/songwriter contemporaries.

Avalon was born Willow Martin in Georgia in 1998, the daughter of outsider musician Jim White, whose misfit-Americana debut, Wrong Eyed Jesus, was championed by the likes of David Byrne (who reissued it on his Luaka Bop label) and TV writer Vince Gilligan (who included several songs in episodes of his acclaimed series Breaking Bad). But this was hardly a privilege for Willow — she endured her parents’ contentious divorce and eventually left home at the age of 15.

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Bakar

A London-based singer/producer with a chameleonic style, Bakar fuses mellow rap flows, easygoing R&B instrumentals, and even the occasional spiky punk rhythm on his genre-bending material. After getting his feet wet self-releasing songs online, he came into a more defined form on the 2018 full-length Badkid, then landed a significant streaming hit with 2019’s “Hell n Back.” He kicked off the next decade with a steady stream of singles, including 2021’s “The Mission,” 2022’s “NW3,” and 2023’s “Good News.” A version of “Hell n Back” featuring Summer Walker appeared on his second album, Halo, in 2023. The single “React” followed in 2024.

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Young the Giant

The West Coast jazz-evoking album jacket of Young the Giant’s self-titled debut doesn’t exactly paint an accurate picture of the California quintet’s breezy modern rock sound, but it does complement it quite nicely. Here’s a band signed to a heavy metal label, whose music is anything but, and which actually excels through recurring shows of subtlety, not force. That’s not to say Young the Giant don’t know how to rock; tracks like “My Body,” “Garands,” and “St. Walker” plug the guitars in and crank them up to that “tough but hooky” sweet spot inhabited by the Kings of Leon and sometimes even My Morning Jacket (whose producer, Bo Koster, adds keyboards to several cuts here).

But it’s dreamier fare like opener “Apartment,” “Guns Out,” and the vaguely Hawaiian “Strings” that really pricks the ears like Fleet Foxes-lite (or may Nada Surf 2.0): all soothing murmurs and sumptuous warm melodies — minus about a million multi-tracked parts. The band really only gets into trouble when “I Got,” “Cough Syrup,” and a few other tunes float dangerously close to the Coldplay clouds, saving face only by the skin of their teeth. (Another track, “Your Side,” has nothing but guest keyboards from Jellyfish alum Roger Manning Jr. to recommend it.) Nevertheless, there’s an unquestionably seductive flow about Young the Giant’s debut that’s sure to lure in many wandering postmodern rock children, looking for alternatives beyond the same old blockbuster bands name-checked above.

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Cage the Elephant

Since forming in 2006, Cage The Elephant have quietly bloomed as one of this generation’s premier rock bands buoyed by uncompromising creativity & wildly cathartic performances. Thus far, they have earned dozens of Gold, Platinum & Multi Platinum certifications, tallied over 5 billion streams, & notched 11 #1 records on Alternative Radio. The guys consecutively garnered 2 GRAMMY® Awards for “Best Rock Album” for both Tell Me I’m Pretty [2015] & Social Cues [2019]. Of the latter, Entertainment Weekly raved, “The album’s introspection paired with its urgent energy make Cage The Elephant sound more passionate than ever.”

In the meantime, their music has also surged through pop culture as “Cigarette Daydreams” graced the soundtrack of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 video game, “Goodbye” appeared in The Summer I Turned Pretty, & “Trouble” powered a global campaign for Amazon Prime. Plus, they’re the rare force of nature who can inspire millions of TikTok creates or hold their own on stage with Dave Grohl & duet with Iggy Pop + Beck. The Kentucky-bred six-piece instinctually lean on their enduring bond as both musicians & friends to get through anything & everything. Moments of elation might take the form of sticky hooks, swaggering rhythms, or upbeat guitars, while tense riffs & jittery grooves could give shape to feelings of anxiety, doubt, or instability. As such, the group fearlessly alchemize a season of tragedy & turbulence into the 12 tracks on their 6th full-length album, Neon Pill.

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