Iowa City band Younger closed their Friday set for Mission Creek Festival with a pitch-perfect cover of Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon.” The sound, energy and song choice were on point. Immediately after, an audience member threw up his hands and said what I suspect others in the crowd were also thinking.
“From now on, I’ll think of my life in two parts: before and after that set.”
Younger is a stripped down, no-frills, badass, three-piece pop-punk band out of Iowa City, composed of members Sarah Mannix (drums), Rachel Sauter (guitar) and Amanda Crosby Perry (bass). The trio started their set with what they describe as the “wormy disco track,” “Chlorophyll,” off their third, upcoming album, Y3K. The single also recently had a music video debut.
From the get-go, the crowd was right there with the band. Fellow LV music columnist Kent Williams noted that, “A heaving crowd responded with their own playful, thrashing dance. It was a high-energy pummeling, like a shiatsu masseuse.”
One thing I’ll add to Kent’s takeaway — Younger managed to build on that energy throughout their show. After the fourth track of the set, one member revealed that everything until then was new material, which goes to show the confidence the band had in the new tracks.
Nevertheless, as the setlist turned to familiar songs, that excitement started to climb. It felt like astronauts getting ready to launch into space. The G-forces kept increasing with every song the trio unleashed upon the crowd. I swear at one point I could feel the concrete floor of Gabe’s give and take with the collective pulse of the crowd.
Special shout-out to Sarah Mannix on drums. Her playing was always propulsive and tight but also managed to surprise; you never knew when a drum fill or shift in tempo would hit. Which, in turn, also speaks to the prowess of Sauter and Crosby Perry, and to the cohesion of the band as a whole — not only in the playing of their instruments, but in the call-and-response moments of their songs and vocal harmonies.
For the most part, they kept the ship together as they ripped through their catalogue. In the brief moments when they didn’t, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who cared. As those Gs were still propelling us towards escape velocity.
For me, the turning point of the night came with the song “Divorce,” off their sophomore album Nightmilk. Halfway through the track, the song relents for but a moment — a rare reprieve from the driving upper BPMs — into a bridge full of guitar fuzz and reverb. It reminded me of the “free-form freak out” interlude of Nirvana’s “Drain You,” which, in turn, was that band’s attempt at a “Won’t Get Fooled Again” moment. Whatever the influence, as soon as “Divorce” slowed down, I knew Younger had the crowd in the palms of their hands.
Soon the track began to climb to its inevitable conclusion. Punctuated by the vocal “oooh ooooh wows” of the trio, we all, collectively, found the euphoria that only comes when you mix a band in top form and an audience game enough to follow them to the ends of the Earth. Or away from its orbit entirely.
