Kentucky rockers Cage The Elephant brought their electrifying, high energy ‘Neon Pill Tour’ to the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan on Tuesday, September 10, 2024.
Lead singer Matt Shultz wheeled out on stage riding a knee walker, with his leg in a walking boot.
“As you all can plainly see I’ve broken my foot, but it has been like a month and a half, so I’m half way there at least,” he told the crowd.
“I have half of it behind and half ahead, but I’ve got this sweet ride, it’s pretty sick. I’ve been learning some new moves. Who knows, maybe a head stand tonight? We’ll see.”
Before so some back-and-forth interaction with packed Michigan crowd, Shultz added: “One of the things that actually has been pretty sick is learning the dynamics of performance, you know, like simplicity. I’ve never sat down and just been kind of relaxed and stood up and people going so fuckin’ crazy before. It’s something we can do together and every single night the audience, the night of the show was louder than the audience before, it’s been a reoccurring theme.”
The singer also gave a nod to the city of Detroit.
“So many of my favorite artists are from this city honestly, it’s an honor, a privilege, a blessing to be here,” he said.
SWOMP was in the pit for their performance, here are the photos:
Here is the full setlist from the Pine Knob show:
1. Broken Boy
2. Cry Baby
3. Spiderhead
4. Too Late to Say Goodbye
5. Good Time
6. Cold Cold Cold
7. Ready to Let Go
8. Neon Pill
9. Social Cues
10. Halo
11. Mess Around
12. Trouble
13. Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked
14. Skin and Bones
15. Rainbow
16. Telescope
17. House of Glass
18. Back Against the Wall
19. In One Ear
20. Sabertooth Tiger
Encore:
21. Shake Me Down
22. Cigarette Daydreams
23. Come a Little Closer
Back in the spring, Cage The Elephant, the Grammy® Award winning rock band marked their return and announced both the release of their forthcoming sixth studio album, Neon Pill (released on May 17, RCA Records) and their 45-date North American summer tour.
The Neon Pill Tour with special guests Young The Giant, Bakar and Willow Avalon will visit Pine Knob Music Theatre on Tuesday, September 10 at 6:30 p.m. Pine Knob Music Theatre is presented by Proud Partners United Wholesale Mortgage, Trinity Health and Ally.
Cage The Elephant’s 45-date North American US tour, produced by Live Nation, kicked off on June 20 in Salt Lake City with shows in cities including Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City.
The new album finds the Kentucky-bred six piece – brothers Matthew Shultz [vocals] and Brad Shultz [guitar], Daniel Tichenor [bass], Jared Champion [drums], Nick Bockrath [lead guitar], and Matthan Minster [guitar, keys, backing vocals] – forging new musical ground, while maintaining their uncompromising creativity and wildly cathartic performances.
“To me, Neon Pill is the first record where we were consistently uninfluenced, and I mean that in a positive way,” observes Matthew.
“Everything is undoubtedly expressed through having settled into finding our own voice. We’ve always drawn inspiration from artists we love, and at times we’ve even emulated some of them to a certain degree. With this album, having gone through so much, life had almost forced us into becoming more and more comfortable with ourselves. We weren’t reaching for much outside of the pure experience of self expression, and simultaneously not necessarily settling either. We just found a uniqueness in simply existing.”
From their humble beginnings in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Cage The Elephant have gone on to become one of the generation’s premier rock bands.
They have earned dozens of Gold, Platinum, and Multiplatinum certifications, tallied over five billion streams, and notched 10 #1 records on Alternative Radio and five #1 records on Triple A Radio.
Their previous two albums Tell Me I’m Pretty [2015] and Social Cues [2019] garnered consecutive Best Rock Album Grammy® Awards.
They are maybe most celebrated for their live show.
The stage is their home turf, where they are most comfortable, and their performances, ecstatic and unchained, as well as cathartic and soul bearing are what Neon Pill achieves in documenting.
Neon Pill, produced by John Hill, materialized during sessions at Sonic Ranch in El Paso, Electric Lady in New York, Sound Emporium in Nashville, Echo Mountain in North Carolina, and at Hill’s own studio in Los Angeles, and alchemized a season of tragedy and turbulence into the 12 tracks on their sixth full-length album.
Nine months into the pandemic, Matthew and Brad lost their father.
The band weathered the back-to-back deaths of friends, while Matthew experience depression and a mental breakdown, culminating in hospitalization.
Coming out on the other side, he learned quite a bit about himself, and gained a whole lot of strength and wisdom.
Neon Pill came to life in the eye of the storm.
Follow the band at https://www.cagetheelephant.com/.