Wednesday, August 29, 8 p.m.
Codfish Hollow Barn, 5013 288th Avenue, Maquoketa IA
Performing in support of their most recent release The Far Field, an album that Rolling Stone said “nicely evokes a rainy Eighties afternoon awash in heartache and MTV,” the Baltimore-based Future Island performs an August 29 concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, ConsequenceOfSound.net calling the pop-synth musicians “a band with passion and drive” and the artists' latest work “their tightest, strongest album yet.”
Currently composed of Gerrit Welmers (keyboards and programming), William Cashion (bass, acoustic and electric guitars), and Samuel T. Herring, (lyrics and vocals), Future Islands was formed in January of 2006 by this trio of longtime friends friends from Greenville, North Carolina – all members of the performance-art college band Art Lord & the Self-Portraits – and drummer Erick Murillo. The latter left the group in November of 2007, after which the band relocated to Baltimore and released their 2008 debut album Wave Like Home through British label Upset the Rhythm. Follow-up albums arrived with 2010's In Evening Air and 2011's On the Water, but Future Islands truly came to prominence in 2014 with the release of the group's fourth album Singles. Its lead single “Seasons (Waiting on You)” was considered by Pitchfork magazine to be the year's best song, and its performance on The Late Show with David Letterman in March of 2014 quickly became the most-viewed video on the show's YouTube page.
As a result, Future Islands enjoyed main stage sets at some of the world's biggest music festivals – among them Bonnaroo, Coachella, Panorama, and the Glastonbury Festival – and sold out many dates on their European summer tour before the 2017 release of The Far Field, leading ConsequenceOfSound.net to deem them “one of the best live bands around.” The Fair Field, meanwhile, has scored Future Islands its strongest reviews to date. The Guardian praised the band's “bright, starry-eyed, muscular compositions,” and according to Spill magazine, “The album is a brilliantly orchestrated show of indie rock … it's full of life and energy and gleams with inspiration.”
Future Islands performs its August 29 concert with an opening set by Sundan Archives, admission to the 8 p.m. show is $26-31, and more information and tickets are available by visiting CodfishHollowBarnstormers.com.
