Live Recap: Young the Giant with Danielle Ponder at Aragon Ballroom
This past Thursday night, the Aragon Ballroom hosted a feel-good show from Young The Giant and Danielle Ponder as part of the American Bollywood Tour.
The night kicked off with singer-songwriter Danielle Ponder from Rochester, New York. I had listened to Ponder a bit on Spotify and already couldn’t wait to see her perform live, but her powerhouse vocals absolutely blew me (and everyone else at the venue) away. Right from the jump, Ponder filled the ballroom with her rich, soulful voice and poetic lyricism. Ponder also had a sense a humor and introduced her song “Someone Like You” by asking all the singles in the crowd to make some noise while sharing her frustration with the dating app Hinge (I think most singles can relate to that sentiment). Later on in the set, Ponder shared that she used to be a public defender, but I’m so glad she’s now able to share her musical talent with us all. In addition to her own songs, Ponder performed a chilled out cover of “Creep” by Radiohead. “Being on a stage like this means everything to me,” she told the audience, but I would bet this won’t be her biggest stage—soon she’ll be headlining even larger rooms.
Next up, the stage was set for headliners Young the Giant, with risers placed on both sides of the stage. The band entered the stage to a backdrop of hazy blue lighting, before launching into their song “American Bollywood,” which is the namesake of their tour and the title of their four-part album that has been released in increments this year. Similarly to the structure of the new album, the live performance was broken up into different acts for different clusters of songs, and between each act, the house speakers played different audio interludes to break them up.
Young the Giant performed the majority of the American Bollywood songs like “Cult of Personality” and “Dancing in the Rain” interlaced with other fan favorites from their earlier discography. Most notably, “Cough Syrup” elicited an immediate response of enthusiastic screams after the first few chords rang out. I feel like very few songs evoke that kind of immediate response, so it was incredible to witness that moment, and something that makes live music continue to be such a beautiful experience.
No matter what song the band was playing throughout the night, lead vocalist Sameer Gadhia remained captivating as he made sure to wander to both ends of the stage and connect with fans in the front, and the entire band occasionally rotated their placement on stage, which kept their performance dynamic and engaging.
Another fan favorite, “My Body” closed out the last act before the three-song encore, hinting that the show was winding down but there was still more to come in the encore. The final three songs consisted of “Superposition,” “Mind Over Matter,” and “Silvertongue.”
If you get the chance, don’t miss out on the American Bollywood tour—see the remaining dates here, and check out the photo recap below.
