Weezer Live at Armory – Minneapolis MN – June 13th 2023

Weezer live with Modest Mouse & Momma @ the Armory Minneapolis

Review and photos by Todd Johnson

I have seen the band Weezer live twice before. The first time I saw them was at the MN State Fair back on September 3, 2016. The 2nd time was the amazing Hella Mega Tour when they stopped at the Target Field back in August 2021 with Fall Out Boy and Green Day. This year it was a 3 Bands for the Price of one deal again. The opening band is a new band named “”Momma” which consists of two main singers/guitar players. Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten and drummer Zach Capitti Fenton. The two singers sometimes sing separately for certain songs, but for some songs things sing together and it sounds eerie and awesome! It reminds me of Veruca Salt back in the day.

The 2nd band, Modest Mouse,  is a band I had always heard of, but never really knew their music. I had known only one song, but I had no idea it was Modest Mouse that played it (“Float On” of course.) The lead singer, Isaac Brock, is a very passionate singer and you can tell he loves what he does.The band is amazing  sounding live and it seems like they could play any song ever made if you asked them to. I was also lucky enough to meet Isaac after the show and when I got a live photo with him we were singing Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” (I have no idea who started singing or why we were singing but it was a moment I will never forget.)

The main event was Weezer and they did not disappoint! They are getting to be low key well known for the elaborate and unique stage set-ups. At the concert set-up they had at the MN State Fair, it was supposed to resemble a pier in southern California (btw, one of the opening bands for that concert was the Struts which were AMAZING.) During the Hella Mega Tour, Rivers Cuomo wore a mullet and had green lightning bolts surrounding him on stage. That stage set-up was cool, but not quite as cool as the set-up for this concert at the Armory. The theme for this tour is an “Indie Rock Road Trip” and the stage is a giant version of the inside of a van with a rearview mirror that acts as a reflection of the audience, a giant dashboard and steering wheel, and a big ass windshield. During some  songs, the band will play on top of the giant dashboard. They played all the classic Weezer songs we know and love but they also put out some surprise acoustic version of deep cuts too. The crowd was actually a surprisingly young crowd that probably weren’t even born when the original blue album was released.