The Suburbs – First Avenue – Minneapolis MN – April 4th 2025

First Avenue presents The Suburbs with special guests The Black Widows

Review and photos by Jim Zons

How is it possible … that is took me until 2025 to see the Suburbs perform live???  It’s true, and what better night to see them than during First Avenue’s 55th Anniversary Party on April 4, 2025.  

First up: the Black Widows, a three-piece, surf-punk band from Minneapolis, featuring Pamela Laizure on bass, Corinne Caouette on guitar and Kim Mancini on drums. With their retro surf guitar sound, thumpin’ bass, and self-described “riot grrrl vocals,” I just LOVED their set from the first song to the last!  You know a band is good when you’re already looking up their touring schedule to see where they’re playing next … even before their first set ends!

Next, the evening’s headliner: the Suburbs.  The Suburbs were founded by in 1977 by keyboardist Chan Poling and guitarist Blaine John “Beej” Chaney and saw their biggest success commercially in the early 1980s before spitting up in 1987. Over the years, the original members have reunited on and off, especially in the early 2000s, but several founding members have since departed, either due to health issues or untimely death. This First Avenue show was the first live performance since founding member Beej Chaney’s unfortunate drowning death in January of 2025 while swimming in the Pacific Ocean.  The current line up consists of founding members Chan Poling on keyboards and Hugo Klaers on drums, as well as Steve Price on bass, Jeremy Ylvisaker on guitar, Steve Brantseg on guitar, Max Ray on saxophone, Rochelle Becker on baritone sax, Stephen Kung on horns and keys, and Janey Winterbauer on backing vocals.

The music of the Suburbs has been described as alternative punk rock, funk, new wave … and their sound really is a melting pot mix of what seems to be every style of alternative music that was popular in the early 1980s.  What a blast it was to get transported back to an era of classic Minneapolis music sound throughout almost two hours of non-stop energetic music! It almost seems appropriate that their first song of the evening was “When We Were Young” since none of them (nor any of us!) are young anymore!  For people outside of the Twin Cities area, you might not be as familiar with the entire Suburbs catalog, but for those of us who grew up in this area, there really weren’t too many songs in their set I hadn’t either heard at one point on Twin Cities radio, or watched on local music video TV shows: “Music for Boys.” “Life Is Like.” “Waiting.” “Baby Heartbeat.” “Rattle My Bones” (you’ll hear that one played during Minnesota Vikings home games).  The highlight of the evening for me personally was when they played two of my all-time favorites: an extended version of “Cows” (how can you NOT love a song with the lyrics “I like cows. And they like me” ???), and perhaps their biggest commercial hit: “Love is the Law.” It was especially satisfying to see and hear “Love is the Law” with a live three-piece horn section!

I can’t believe that it took me over 40 years before I finally got to see the Suburbs perform live, and after seeing them at First Avenue, I can guarantee you I won’t be waiting another 40 years to see them again!