La Dispute – St. Andrews Hall – 11.16.19

La Dispute, Touché Amoré, Empath
St. Andrews Hall – Detroit, MI – 11.16.19
Photographer: Blake Yard

Seeing this line-up announced made me feel like it was 2010 again when La Dispute & Touché Amoré released their split album Searching for a Pulse/The Worth of the World. 

Opening the evening was Empath all the way from Philadelphia. This year, the band released Active Listening: Night on Earth . The band will continue on tour through the end of December in celebration of the release. 

The band wasn’t what I expected for this line-up (I tend to lean towards heavier music) but they engaged crowd and got everyone ready for the incredible bands they were about to see.

Touché Amoré recently put out a 10th anniversary version of …To the Beat of a Dead Horse (appropriately named Dead Horse X.) – what better time to fire that out before starting a tour off. I’ve been jamming that album along with their 2016 album, Stage Four.

The crowd completely lost as they stepped on stage and went straight into “Flowers and You.” Being the first night of this tour, you could tell they were excited and ready to go all in on this tour.

About half way through the set, Jordan Dreyer of La Dispute stormed the stage to help vocalist Jeremy Bolm preform “I’ll Get My Just Deserves” off the bands split. To my knowledge – it has been the first time they’ve played this song live and it had the reaction they were hoping for as people crawled over each other to get the front.

They ended the set with“Honest Sleep” (one of my personal favorites.) This was a perfect end to the set because the whole crowd can participate in screaming the final verse.  

You could tell La Dispute was excited to kick off this tour in their home state, most of the band only growing up a few hours from Detroit.

Dreyer began the night with “VIEW FROM OUR BEDROOM WINDOW,” a recent hit of the bands news album Panorama.

This song is a perfect mix of slow moving jams and the fast paced aggressive jabs La Dispute is known for. A few songs in Jordan removed his gray hoodie to show off a classic Detroit Red Wings T-shirt, this was a good indicator that the set was about to pick up as Bolm came out to join La Dispute for “How I Feel & Why It Scares Me.”

Seeing these two great singers on stage together made the 17 year old in me so excited for everyone across the US that is about to experience this tour as well.

La Dispute ended the night with a heavy encore playing “The Last Lost Continent” and then winding everyone down with the last song off of Panorama, “YOU ASCENDANT.”

Stream Panorama here, and follow the band on Facebook to keep up to date with upcoming shows.

La Dispute

Touché Amoré

Empath