BARONESS
BARFLY @ Skyway Theater in Minneapolis
11/12/21
Review by Nick. Pictures by Brett.
Imagine one of your favorite bands playing a small club. Imagine finding out that the club is smaller than you think. It’s like your favorite band playing a basement show again, but with better sound.
These are the shows that you only hear about after words and that will probably never happen again. Luckily for Minneapolis, it happened twice on back to back nights.
BARONESS played the surprisingly small Bar Fly at the Skyway Theater in Minneapolis after headlining the main room in 2019. While I expected a more intimate show, it was WAY more intimate than I expected with almost 360 degrees view of the band. I took advantage of that watching the show from different spots throughout the night.
This being a “by request” set where ticket holders picked out a good chunk of the set. Then the band filled out the set playing some different songs that they normally don’t get to play. This made for a very special show … and even more special for those that went both nights.
Both nights started off with “Ogeechee Hymnal” as a nice welcome back for the band and the fans before going in different directions each night. Friday night’s show went straight in to a victorious “Take My Bones Away” that was a huge crowd sing along right off the bat. Saturday night, that song ended the main set making it a nice bookend of the two shows.
The most impressive thing that struck me while watching the set was how much the band thought about each song where it went in the set and what interlude would complement the next song. I wanted a live record before from Baroness, now I really want a live record from Baroness. This was a nice mix of favorites and songs you may have forgot about from the band’s epic catalog.
While you always want to hear “Take My Bones Away”, “March to the Sea”, “A Horse Called Golgatha”, “Shock Me” and “Isak”, the real gems in the set were the ones rarely played.
“Tourniquet” from Gold and Grey was just as amazing as on the record. The acoustic part in the middle of the show of “Cocainuim” and “Foolsong” was a beautiful quiet moment full of harmonies that needs to come out on a 7 inch vinyl. “Desperation Burns” was a nice way to come roaring back after the two acoustic songs.
The precision of the band playing off each other was at an all time high with this set. All 4 members locked in together all in the name of groove. There’s not many bands that could pull off a set of this magnitude as flawless as Baroness does. As was evident in the nice build up at the end of the main set going from “Seasons” into “The Sweetest Curse” into “The Birthing” before a rowdy “Isak” closed the main set.
The encore of “Wanderlust” is a song John said that they always play in Minneapolis and was a great way to end the show.
This show was the band being out on tour because they wanted to be out on tour not because they had to. You could clearly see on their faces that they were enjoying every moment of being on that stage creating that night for not only the fans but for themselves too. No one member of the band outshined the other, they all shined brightly together.
Being able to not only see a show like that in a small venue but also to help make the set list and get a show poster as you left was all well worth the price of admission. If you are able to get out to any of the remaining shows on the tour, definitely do so or you’ll be kicking yourself after words.
SEE MORE OF BRETT'S PICTURES FROM BARONESS AT THE BARFLY HERE!
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