Bug Hunter and the Narcissist Cookbook – The Granada Theater – Minneapolis MN – July 17, 2025

Bug Hunter and the Narcissist Cookbook at the Granada Theater – July 17, 2025

Review and photos by Catherine Zons

I arrived at the Granada Theater for Bug Hunter and the Narcissist Cookbook–and was immediately struck by the theater’s beautiful open concept layout and the geniality of the staff. Originally a silent film theater in the 1920s, it features a modern outdoor seating area and indoor bar, as well as an elegant and historically faithful stage and performance hall. These days, the Granada is a versatile venue, hosting a wide array of performances: indeed, the marquee, as I arrived, boasted not only the acoustic indie concert I was here to see, but also a blues musician and an event entitled “Taste the Movie,” an event where one watches a movie while eating a meal based upon it.

I went inside to wait for the exclusive VIP event I was here to take part in before the real show began. Unsure of what to expect, I waited in the entrance where I took in the glittering interior décor and was checked in on periodically by the Granada’s hospitable bartenders. Eventually, a kindly older man sporting a Bug Hunter and Narcissist Cookbook tour t-shirt emerged from beyond a black velvet curtain and announced a welcome to the small group of fans that had now collected in the entrance. Introducing himself as Papa Bug, father of the artist Bug Hunter, he checked our tickets and let us beyond the curtain and into the theater, making easy small talk as we went. 

The Granada’s performance hall was both intimate and grand, its Spanish-Revival-style architecture gilded and glittering in the low lighting. The high ceiling was a deep purple interspersed with tiny lights, giving one an impression of standing beneath a starry night sky. The VIP experience began with some time for open mingling, where The Narcissist Cookbook and Bug Hunter engaged with fans at a 1-1 level about anything from their music to video games. Being used to larger venues with a much stricter division between performing artists and their audiences, watching Bug Hunter and The Narcissist Cookbook shaking hands and engaging closely with fans was especially cool. Each artist played two songs apiece that weren’t a part of the larger setlist (including “The Pattern,” one of my favorite Narcissist Cookbook songs!) This was followed by some time to buy merch and take photos with the artists before the larger show, which was so exciting. My favorite pieces of merch were signed lyric cards from each artist’s various popular songs; I came away with two cards for “vs. The Heat Death of the Universe” and “Simplest Words,” two songs from This is How We Get Better, a contemplative compilation album released in 2021 by the Narcissist Cookbook. My only regret from the night was not also getting a Bug Hunter lyric card too!

The main show was broken into three acts: The two co-headlining acts each performed their solo works, and then the two performed some songs from their collaborative music podcast, Jam Mechanics. Between each act were interludes of Papa Bug telling dad jokes and playing “Papa Bug Says,” a Bug-ified version of original Simon Says.

Matt Johnston of The Narcissist Cookbook went first, opening their set with “It Felt Fake,” a sensitive ballad exploring apathy and emotional disconnection. Hailing from Arran, Scotland, The Narcissist Cookbook has a distinctive, self-taught sound that developed through a journey with busking, illness, and substance abuse. Their music often resembles raw spoken-word poetry backed with complex acoustic guitar melodies. Many of Matt’s songs are profoundly touching or emotional pieces, and they showed an incredible ability to perfectly balance the weight of their music with moments of lighthearted banter and quips. Matt confronted the ever-present musician’s problem of playing everything the audience wants to hear by asking an audience member to pick a random song from a box, promising not only to play the song chosen but to also remove it from the box for the rest of the tour—giving the people of Minneapolis an exclusive preview to “A Gap Between the Hawthorns,” a yet-unreleased track off their upcoming album. 

The set also included a few “hiccups” that only made the set more charming. During “beach piano,” Matt accidentally uttered the phrase “beef piano,” prompting the audience to chant, “beef! beef! beef! beef!”—a crowd response so goofy that Matt walked away from the microphone and took a lap around the stage to recalibrate. The set ended with “Apple,” a spoken-word monologue from the perspective of Lucifer, who expresses to Eve all the wonderfully human reasons why it is worth it to bite the apple in Eden and lose immortality. Described by Matt as one of the hardest songs to perform due to the complexity and sheer abundance of lyrics, it was an especially powerful song to end on.

Bug Hunter’s set began with “Making Up Words,” a lively song that pairs inventive rhyme with syncopation to express the difficulty of saying what you want to when it feels like the words you need don’t exist yet. This song is first on the track list of Torn Between a Couple, Bug Hunter’s first studio album released in 2017. Originally a solo project from Seattle, Washington that gained members as it grew, Bug Hunter seemed to echo the humble beginnings of the project with the performance in Minneapolis; Hunter performed music alone on an acoustic guitar, creating a performance that was both casual and intimate. Bug engaged with the crowd often, beginning an accidental running gag by asking if we were the type of crowd to cheer as the artist drinks water “so it’s not awkward.” Naturally, we cheered. Subsequently, the largest applause for the rest of the show came when Bug took a swig from his water bottle. He also received the show’s only booing after performing an unreleased new song—not because of the music, but because he pretended to drink some water without actually doing it. 

Bug Hunter’s set included some fan favorites, like “Disco! In the Panic Room,” “2 Bed, 2 Bath, and a Ghost” and “Dear McCracken”—but also featured “A Bedtime Story,” a whimsically gory song with some audience participation. The song chronicles the narrator’s plea for a bedtime story as well as the tale itself: a story of two characters, Big Bear and Small Bear, who scheme to open a tent in the woods and get a new home and warm human meal. The Narcissist Cookbook returned to the stage to play Big Bear while Iggy, a fan selected from the crowd, joined them to play Small Bear. Costumed in fuzzy bear hats with attached paws, the two sang the bears’ dialogue and danced around the stage as Bug Hunter played the role of narrator. The song, which ends with the narrator terrified and even further from sleep than where they started, garnered erupting applause at the final chord.

The third act saw both artists returning to the stage to perform the collaborative works produced on Jam Mechanics, a music podcast that the two host together. The premise of the podcast is that Matt and Bug challenge one another to write a song demo in three hours from a single prompt, a challenge that often produces a work that is innovative and otherwise unthinkable. The two started with “Liberal Kitty,” sporting cat ears while performing a piece about a cat that “donates to causes” and “voted for Kamala, but it didn’t count” because he’s a cat. While Matt went on to remove their cat ears, Bug Hunter kept them on for the rest of the set. The two played a few more favorites like “The Hook” and “Get Deep Fried,” the latter of which is an upbeat tune about the fall of civilization to eldritch god Cthulhu. “Get Deep Fried” included an unexpected tangent about “rizzing Old Ones” and all I can say is that you really just had to be there. The set ended with “Art is for Amateurs,” a wonderfully poignant song about art’s love-hate relationship with fame and wealth. After the applause died down and the artists left the stage, Papa Bug came back out to give a final farewell by giving us one more “Papa Bug Says” command: with a wave, he declared, “Papa Bug says, Goodnight Minneapolis!”

The reigning sentiment I had throughout the evening was how comfortably intimate the experience was. Bug Hunter and the Narcissist Cookbook engaged with the audience often and easily, adapting their sets based on the crowd’s input. The evening resembled more of a variety show than a strict concert and it resulted in a very unique and memorable experience. It was probably the most I’ve laughed in a long while, and I had an all-around incredible time. Bug Hunter and The Narcissist Cookbook promised that they’d be returning to the Granada Theater sometime in the near-future—and It’s an eventual encore I’ll be patiently excited for.