A devastating week for Houston, and surrounding areas, in Hurricane Beryl’s wake, left some Cage the Elephant fans uncertain about the status of the Neon Pill Tour’s stop in The Woodlands. But Friday approached without cancelation. No postponement flyer graced the instagram stories of the featured bands or venue, and no power outages were reported in the venue’s immediate area. It was a go. Thousands of concertgoers walked across the bridge to The Pavilion, picnic blankets and lawn chairs in tow.
The band’s namesake, the deranged ramblings of a concertgoer in 2006, “you have to cage the elephant!” to be precise, suggest that their early shows were likely as dynamic as they are now. But their early style: a little blues, grunge, some post punk—sonically uncombed and slightly underproduced—seems to have given way to something more polished in their 2024 record Neon Pill. But this tour isn’t really about the album, despite being named after it. In fact their Houston setlist included only three songs from the new offering. The rest of the show was packed with hits from their six other records.
It was still light out when Young the Giant, the tour’s main opener, took to the stage. Under The Pavilion’s canopy it remained a balmy 80 degrees Fahrenheit as the evening light faded and the fog machines spilled their haze out into the tiered amphitheater. Atmospherically, and with an opening band of Young the Giant’s caliber, it felt less like a concert and more like a music festival. It was a good place to be.
Lead vocalist Sameer Gadhia stepped on to a dark stage in a simple sleeveless white shirt and white linen trousers, dimly lit by a matrix of purple stage lights. Payam Doostzadeh (bass) followed shortly after from stage right, followed then by Jacob Tilley (guitar), Eric Cannata (guitar), and François Comtois (percussion). Gadhia looked out to the packed venue (even the hill was brimming with families and couples on picnic blankets) and began singing “Jungle Youth” from their immensely popular 2016 record Home of the Strange.
“The Walk Home”, a song from their latest album American Bollywood, released in 2022, gave fans what would be their only taste of newer YTG repertoire for the night. The record was inspired by the ancient Sanskrit Hindu text of The Mahabharata and offers quite a more atmospheric, thoughtful style of songwriting though, perhaps, with less commercial notability that some of their earlier work.
“Cough Syrup”, the band’s third song of the night, seemed a standout moment for fans. The crowd jumped up and down and sang back the lyrics at the top of their lungs. Hardly the wonted experience of a concert’s supporting act. But this was no usual opening set. Though Gadhia and his band of mystic rock stars had no dedicated stage setting—they performed in front of the headliner’s stage set, as an opening act usually does—they made the Neon Pill Tour feel like it was co-headlined, simply by delivering the kind of arresting musical spectacle we should now know to expect when Young the Giant is on the bill.
After “Cough Syrup” Gadhia explained that the band didn’t plan on going on tour again this summer. They instead were going to work on their next album, and rest from their 2023 tour. But when their old friends Cage The Elephant called, the “Mind Over Matter” singer and his band couldn’t resist. “This next song we haven’t played in six years!” Gadhia declared, “we’re going to try it.” The song he was referring to was another gem from Home of the Strange, “Elsewhere” which had rarely been performed live.
Young the Giant flew through a range of hits, new and old, including “Heat of Summer”, “Call Me Back”, and “Apartment.” But the audience really got into it when the group played the uplifting intro to “Superposition”, a mellow, psychedelic pop anthem from the 2018 album Mirror Master. “I want you” the crowd, now all on their feet, sang back to the stage, “to want me! Why don’t we rely on chemistry?” As the sun finally set, one of the girls in a group next to me yelled “This is my favorite song!”
A noticeable lack of cell phone recording was taking place during Young the Giant’s remarkable performance. It could have been a coincidence but I’d like to think that their concert might just have been that engaging. Finishing with smash hits “Mind Over Matter”, “Silvertongue”, and “My Body” the band retired for the night.
Set design for Cage The Elephant’s performance was really just extensive and strategically placed lighting. Behind the main platform, which housed the trap set, a Rhodes, and other keyboards, was a curved flight of vintage-style amber lamps that backlit the whole scene. In addition to these stylized lamps was an elaborate grid of modern stage lighting, as well as floor-to-ceiling strips of LEDs. Soon after Cage The Elephant entered the stage and picked up their instruments, frontman Matt Shultz sang the opening line of “Broken Boy” on a dimly lit stage.
But when the singer began the first chorus, it became clear that there was a lot more to the stage than lighting. Pyrotechnic jets flared from the base of the stage and Shultz leapt in the air clearing the entire mic stand, turning the crowd wild. A network of lasers aimed from the stage ceiling added to the intricacy of the tour’s lighting design. Interestingly, the main video feed, broadcasting to two enormous screens on either side of the stage, was in black and white, lending ‘home video’ air to what was essentially a stadium-sized concert.
Matt Shultz was entirely silhouetted by the backlights: a human eclipse in an L.A. Dodgers cap and hipster sweater vest, as he began singing “Spiderhead”, a crowd favorite from the band’s 2013 album Melophobia, meaning “fear of music.”
“We know it’s been a tough time for a lot of people,” Shultz empathized with Houstonians following Hurricane Beryl’s lasting adverse consequences, “we’re honored and blessed to be here.” The group played through a few songs from different eras: “Too Late To Say Goodbye” (Tell Me I’m Pretty, 2015), “Good Time” (Neon Pill, 2024), and “Ready to Let Go” (Social Cues, 2019), before performing the title track of their new record, “Neon Pill”, which some fans already knew all the lyrics to.
“Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked” was met with extraordinary enthusiasm from a zealous and well lubricated crowd, as was expected. But the song that left the biggest impression on me was “Telescope” which saw an entire 15,000 person pavilion waving their lit phones back and forth to the music. “Let’s see the lights!” Shultz urged.
As the band began their last few songs, beginning with their hit “Shake Me Down” Shultz admitted to the audience that his in-ear monitor had not been working for most of the show but had finally turned back on, shocking many concertgoers. Remarkably, he, and the rest of the band, had sounded just like their studio recordings throughout the evening; an impressive feat without a working monitor.
“Cigarette Daydreams” and, unsurprisingly, “Come a Little Closer” closed out the show. There were no real surprises. In fact, Cage’s setlist was publicly available long before the concert and there were no changes made, no surprise guests, no epiphanic speeches, or song switches. But with a band like Cage the Elephant, do you really need surprises? From opening acts like Bakar and Young the Giant, to a show-stopping, pyrotechnic infused finale, the Neon Pill Tour was the show of the summer. The tour is slated to continue through the U.S. through September before its final stop in Mexico City.
SETLISTS
Young the Giant:
1. Jungle Youth
2. The Walk Home
3. Cough Syrup
4. Waves
5. Elsewhere
6. Heat of Summer
7. It’s About Time
8. Call Me Back
9. Apartment
10. Superposition
11. Mind Over Matter
12. Tightrope
13. Silvertongue
14. My Body
Cage the Elephant:
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
