YOUNG THE GIANT, COLD WAR KIDS & JOYWAVE PLAY SUMMERSTAGE

Summer is officially over, but some artists are still providing fans with excuses to toast beers and wine and listen to music outdoors. The SummerStage concert series continued Wednesday night with performances by Joywave, Cold War Kids and Young the Giant.

If you were looking for grooving dance music, introspective lyrics and rocker hair flips (thank you drummer Paul Brenner), you got all that and more from Joywave. The synth-pop band is relatively new to the scene (they released their debut album How Do You Feel Now? in April 2015), but they play and interact with fans like seasoned professionals. Each member of the quintet that hails from Rochester, New York performs like he is competing with the others to see who can rage the hardest. Guitarist, Joseph Morinelli and bassist, Sean Donnelly, thrash and bounce off one another, while lead singer Daniel Armbruster uses the mic stand as a crutch to lean into the crowd. Joywave delivered a performance that made us all wonder why they held the opener and not the main slot on the bill. If you missed their performance at SummerStage they’ll be back in NYC in November.

Joywave

Up next were the Cold War Kids. The Long Beach natives formed the group in 2004 and to date have released six studio albums. Each album demonstrates that their music transverses multiple genres including indie rock, rag-time jazz, soul and blues, all while sounding fresh and relevant. When you see them live, their variety of music makes it seem like you are listening to four different bands play. You never know what to expect. At one point they’ll sing “Hang Me Up To Dry” (a song that everyone in the crowd was shouting) and then they’ll cover Rihanna’s “Love on the Brain.”

Cold War Kids

Young the Giant closed the night with blinding lights and musical prowess. As the rest of the band got situated, lead singer, Sameer Gadhia appeared silhouetted at the top of a pyramid of stairs. Light began to fill the shadows and Gadhia, wearing an orange jumpsuit, launched into “Amerika.” The quintet followed with hits “Something to Believe In” and “Cough Syrup.” Young the Giant will be joined on its “Home of the Strange Tour” by Cold War Kidsand Joywave through October.