Last month, Deafheaven released their monstrous, soul-stirring new album Lonely People With Power, and our friend Michael Nelson went deep into the motherfucking zone while describing all the reasons why he thinks it's their best. On Saturday night, Deafheaven kicked off a beast of a North American tour with Gatecreeper and Trauma Ray, and they pulled the unusual move of starting a tour with one of its biggest shows -- in Los Angeles, at the Belasco. They pulled a few more unusual moves, too.
As I write this, Deafheaven are only two shows into their tour, but they played the same setlists at both gigs. For now, at least, they're devoting the vast majority of their setlist to their new LP. They're playing almost every song from the album, including one of the interludes, and they're doing all those tracks in the order in which they appear on the LP. Along the way, they take breaks for just three songs from past LPs: "Brought To The Water" from New Bermuda, "Worthless Animal" from Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, and of course "Dream House" from Sunbather.
Deafheaven played eight of the 12 tracks from Lonely People With Power at the Belasco show, and it was their first time playing any of those songs live. It's always hard to gauge too much from live videos. From what I can tell, though, they sounded spectacular, and the crowd was right with them throughout. At least once, George Clarke called for a circle pit by tracing a circle in the air, which is always cool as hell. He got what he wanted. Below, check out a fan-made clip of their closer "Winona," as well as another one of the entire set and the gig's setlist.
SETLIST:
01 "Doberman"
02 "Magnolia"
03 "Brought To The Water"
04 "The Garden Route"
05 "Heathen"
06 "Amethyst"
07 "Worthless Animal"
08 "Incidental II"
09 "Revelator"
10 "Dream House"
11 "Winona"
Lonely People With Power is out now on Roadrunner.
