By: Shelby Lum
Quiet guitars strumming, amps pushed out of the way, and a performance mostly without the electric guitars that brought Anberlin to popularity will fill the Florida rockers’ show at The Loft.
For their summer tour, Anberlin will be playing a stripped down show, reminiscent of sessions of MTV Unplugged, and fans can hear “Paperthin Hymn,” “Feel Good Drag,” and other heavy, rock songs in a completely different way.
So why this different approach with an acoustic tour?
“We feel like we have progressed. You don’t want to put out the same album twice, but you also don’t want to alienate fans and just completely change and reinvent yourself with each record. Some people like doing that…but for Anberlin it’s been a chance to grow with our fans and not abandon everything that made Anberlin what we were with our first couple albums,” said drummer Nathan Young.
With that progression in their music, the group will be giving fans a taste of old staples and new found favorites but with an acoustic twist. This won’t be the first time the guys have stripped down their show either, but the last acoustic tour Anberlin did, Atlanta wasn’t part of the tour dates, Young said.
Anberlin released it’s latest album Vital last October, and Young said it has some of the group’s most aggressive songs on it. “When we were making it, it felt more aggressive than the prior ones…but I think it has the most aggressive songs on our record,” he said.
“The heavier side was definitely intentional…there just aren’t a lot of bands doing just kind of rock stuff,” Young said. “For us we were like lets put out a heavier record and just go for it.”
Even with a heavier record, with bigger, louder songs, the band still decided to cut loose, and embark on an acoustic tour for the summer. With six albums, and over a decade of music to choose from, making set lists isn’t as simple as pulling together an hour’s worth of songs either. It’s a slow development of the perfect arrangement.
“It’s such a process…it’s been like weeks of emails and back and forth,” he said. “It’s always going to be impossible to please everyone especially with this many albums.” Young said that the group tries to find a balance between old a new songs, but there are still staples that they usually always play such as “Paperthin Hymn.”
Don’t miss this unique Anberlin show, and experience.
Anberlin is scheduled to play at The Loft on Friday, July 12th.
