Tennis kicked off The Farewell Tour in Las Vegas on Saturday night as a capacity crowd gathered at Swan Dive in the city’s Arts District. The Denver-based band, whose engine consists of wife-and-husband duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley, grooved through its hour-long set, and the crowd was there to dance and sway along with them.
Before Tennis stepped on stage, Husbands opened the evening for one of the two nights they will accompany Tennis on this tour. Their upbeat, surf-garage rock music set the tone in their second show in the city since October before giving way to the headlining act.
Opening with “I Can Only Describe You” from their recently released album Face Down in the Garden, the set was smooth, tight and oozed the confident ease of years spent creating. Moore, who spent the night alternating between playing a synth keyboard, a piano and occasionally a guitar, greeted the crowd with a sweet smile and thanked them for joining their, as she put it, “last first show of the tour.”
Most of the set consisted of their quartet of records released since 2017: Yours Conditionally, We Can Die Happy, Swimmer, Pollen and Face Down in the Garden. However, the band threw it back to 2013 for a rendition of “My Better Self” in the latter half to much acclaim. Throughout the night, Moore smoothly danced to the beats and seemed to grin each time Riley took over for a musical interlude in many of the songs. The between-song banter was limited, but as the final act of the night came, Moore pulled the veil back on “12 Blown Tires,” describing the track as one about the years spent touring with Riley over the years. She explained the song was the first they wrote for the new album and that playing it on their final tour was a “bittersweet experience.”
Tennis maintained a nice and easy energy as they played through their synth-pop records, which reached an apex when they played their tempo-bending “Need Your Love” in the set’s penultimate song before finishing with “Glorietta.” Whether Moore and Riley ever return for another tour as Tennis or as something else entirely, it’s hard to imagine a music scene without their easy-going partnership.
Story and photos by Zac Pacleb
