CHVRCHES & Potty Mouth, Riviera Theatre, Chicago, Illinois

We arrived at the sold out show before any music had started. Despite bouncers ushering us towards the rear areas, within a just a few minutes we were able to scoot though the crowd, down the last set of stairs onto the rear of the main floor. There was still quite a bit of room on the far side. Shortly after we arrived opening act Potty Mouth, an all-female garage rock band from Western Massachusetts, began their set.

CHVRCHES took the stage a bit before 9:30. They’re fronted by Lauren Mayberry with the instrumentation provided by Iain Cook and Martin Doherty or synthesizers/keyboards. One of the guys sings lead vocals on a song or two as well. Their brand of indie pop is often very high energy, and the style of their show fit their music with ample lights and LED panels choreographed to illuminate in time with the music. I did a lot of bouncing up and down in place, but it was pretty close quarters where we were standing so I couldn’t move around too much.

Their mix of songs included the live debut of “High Enough to Carry You Over” and many of their best songs from both of their albums. It was definitely one of the better shows that I’ve seen so far this year. Lauren also had some funny musings, which I partially attribute to her Scottish heritage. Mind you, it was nothing approaching the hilarity of Frightened Rabbit’s Scot Hutchinson, but honest and entertaining little tidbits between songs, a few of which I’ll paraphrase below that stood out in particular:

• “It’s a CHVRCHES Rule to never look each other in the eye [during a performance], but over the last six months or so, Iain keeps getting closer and closer to breaking it.“
• “I steal an HBO password, or I did for a long time. Now I have my own because I have a US address. It wasn’t that I was unwilling to pay before, but [HBO’s attitude was] ‘hey we’re like fuck you you’re British.’” 
• “I had a dream I was dating Justin Bieber. Nothing sexy, he was just upset and I had to console him. So it was really just all the baggage.”
• [After noting the cancelation of the Donald Trump rally at UIC that evening] “He used prime time television to tell everyone he’s got a big dick so it’s alright.”

Setlist:
Never Ending Circles
We Sink
Keep You on My Side

Make Them Gold
Empty Threat
Tether
Playing Dead
Science/Visions
Gun
Bury It
High Enough to Carry You Over
Under the Tide
Recover
Leave a Trace
Clearest Blue
Encore:
Afterglow
The Mother We Share