alt-J celebrates decennial anniversary of ‘An Awesome Wave’ with 2023 tour

An eager crowd grew outside of the front door to Nashville’s Marathon Music Works on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Fans began to arrive to claim their spots in line hours before the venue doors opened.

The concertgoers huddled together and eagerly murmured their excitement for the show.

It has been an entire decade since the UK band alt-J released their debut album, An Awesome Wave, and almost an entire year for the band on the road touring for the celebration. They had been off the map for most of 2020 and 2021, but after releasing their fourth studio album, The Dream, in February of 2022 the band has been glued to the road playing shows for both the new album and the decennial anniversary of AAW.

Personally, this album means a lot to me. It has held the spot of #1 album in my life for many years now. Something about the somber guitar lines and the way the songs sound so cheerful but are so often full of very dark themes, hidden behind the whimsical gait of lead singer Joe Newman’s instantly recognizable voice. The album rises and falls, building in crescendo to a point where the songs become almost manic, and then falling back down to the contemplative murmur where they began. The diversity and breadth of emotion that are traversed over the course of the album can sometimes feel like an emotional roller coaster, and that emotion is the reason the record has come to be considered such a masterpiece, and no doubt is the reason for alt-J’s early success. However, the band from Leeds could not be kept to ruminate on the successes of their past for too long. After playing AAW from start to finish, the band drove straight forward into the rest of their setlist comprised of other songs from their three follow up albums. Radio hits like “In Cold Blood” intermingled with newer, more somber tunes like “Chicago” reminded the audience that alt-J is by no means a one-trick-pony. The band remains perfectly capable of recording an album that can bring your thoughts to some of the most introspective and oftentimes sad places a human mind can go, luckily however, they are also capable of playing a show so mind-blowing that it makes you forget all of that stuff even exists until the lights come back on and you shuffle back to the real world waiting for you in the street in front of the venue.

Setlist Playlist

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