Tokyo Police Club bring pinball & reprieve to St. Louis

Election night 2024. Tensions were running high across the United States. Kamala vs. Trump butted heads over who will control the future of our country. You could feel everyone’s stress hanging in the air everywhere you went in the city — except one place. Politics don’t exist once you set foot inside The Pageant. The club was bumping. The ladies looked good. The alcohol was flowing.

There is much pain in the world, but not in that room.

I doubt Tokyo Police Club realized that, when they set out on their final tour, they would be providing so many people shelter from the chaotic and, often, disappointing reality of the country we currently live in. But what better vessel to forget the world around you than a trip down memory lane, with a band that I personally was obsessed with way back during the Limewire days? Tokyo Police Club’s song “Tessellate” was on constant rotation on my mix CDs and iPod playlists back then, and every time I hear that song now, it instantly takes me back to a more carefree part of my life. Now that I’m older, I’m realizing how special of a gift that is.

The opening act, Canadian musician Menno Versteeg, began the show and was clearly trying to lighten the mood and take people’s minds off of what was being broadcast on every available TV screen in town. His set was part concert and part stand up routine. In between songs, Versteeg regaled the crowd with lighthearted jokes and stories. His songs also landed somewhere between comedic and introspective. Topics like finding forgiveness for his misbehaved dog, feeling like a fish out of water in public, and an advertisement for an energy drink that never aired drove the show and gave the audience something else to focus on for a while.

Headlining the night was Tokyo Police Club on their “Final Tour”. I’m always skeptical when a band says that it’s their ‘last’ tour. Whether or not you actually believe them, this show definitely felt like a long overdue victory lap. I remember listening to songs off of their 2008 album Elephant Shell during in the early 2000s; I was too young to go to many shows back then, so finally being able to see them play “Tessellate” in person felt like a long time coming. I guess, in a way for me, what was meant to be a “farewell” tour also felt like a bit of a homecoming.

It felt triumphant in nature, like a celebration at the end of a long journey.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that these guys had a full-sized custom Tokyo Police Club pinball machine with them and were keeping track of high scores at each venue they stopped at. How rad is that?

Anyways, this is the part of the review where I usually tell you to catch the tour before it ends or keep an eye out for the next one… but the tour is now over and, if it really was their last one and you didn’t catch it, you totally missed out.

Photography by Sean Rider

Share this article

or