Hundreds of fans streamed into Flushing’s Citi Field to catch The Lumineers on The Automatic World Tour last Friday night. The folk rock group has certainly graduated to massive stages in their twentieth year as a band and they bathed the Mets’ stadium in a rainbow of colors to celebrate. The positive energy even kept the threat of rain at bay for a stunning evening of music and camaraderie.
Hippo Campus opened the show with the late afternoon sun still high in the sky which was perfect for their sunny tunes. There were a lot of fans in the crowd and they exuberantly sang along to “Baseball”, “Buttercup” and much more. Their set was short, sweet and the perfect appetizer for the rest of the show.
Young the Giant’s music is perfectly suited to golden hour and they ushered in the sunset to the tune of “Silvertongue”, “Walk Me Home” and even more hits. Like The Lumineers, Young the Giant has been gracing stages around the world for a very long time and have woven themselves into the tapestry of anthemic, melancholic rock music. The band also debuted “Different Kind of Love” for the first time and filled the stadium with the sweeping arc of their many familiar songs. The set closed with “My Body” as the crowd jumped along to warm up for the night’s headliner.
The stage transformed into a blinding wall of color as The Lumineers entered to thunderous cheers from the now-full stadium. Despite the huge production, this is a band that has never strayed from their roots or forgotten their early days of making music that transformed their genre. Founding members Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites performed with the ease that 20 years of creative partnership bring and the joy of being onstage was evident on the faces of everyone in the band.
Fans were also given a wristband that lit up in sync with the rest of the stadium, creating a backdrop of rainbows and patterns to go along with each song. Fans on the floor looked up in awe during “You’re All I Got” and “Asshole” to see the lights twinkling up to the highest parts of Citi Field. The band never missed a step, continuing with their lengthy setlist that explored every corner of their 20 year career.
As the night went on, Mets mascot Mr. Met appeared onstage to play tambourine on “Ophelia” before the band threw in a cover of Billy Joel’s iconic “New York State of Mind”. The show came to a reluctant close- even after nearly 30 songs- with “Cleopatra” and “Stubborn Love”, sending countless fans into the muggy night thoroughly satisfied with such an amazing series of performances.
