As the calendar inches closer to Memorial Day weekend and Northeast Ohio collectively exhales after another long winter, summer concert season is finally ready to roar back to life. There are few better ways to kick that off than an outdoor show on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, with thousands of fans singing in unison as the sun dips behind the Cleveland skyline.
That’s exactly the scene waiting for concertgoers when Young the Giant bring their latest tour to Jacobs Pavilion on Wednesday, May 27, alongside special guests Cold War Kids and Almost Monday.
For many music fans, outdoor concert season carries a certain emotional weight that goes far beyond simply hearing songs performed live. It’s the shared experience — strangers high-fiving during a chorus, voices echoing across the water, the collective feeling of stepping away from the chaos of everyday life for a few hours and simply existing together in the same moment. Few bands understand the importance of that connection better than Young the Giant.
Ahead of the Cleveland stop, guitarist Eric Cannata spoke with CleveRock.com about the band’s acclaimed new album, “Victory Garden,” collaborating with legendary producer Brendan O’Brien, crafting a setlist from six albums worth of material, and the group’s ongoing mission to create a welcoming environment where fans can forget about division and reconnect through music.
For Cannata, “Victory Garden” represents a particularly satisfying chapter in the band’s evolution — not because it was easy, but because it felt genuine from start to finish.
“I feel great,” Cannata said. “I feel like this record was just right. I feel like at the end of making a record, sometimes you can look back and say, ‘I would’ve changed this. I would’ve changed that.’ But everything about this record felt really joyful to make, to write; to record.”
That feeling of fulfillment was amplified by the band’s decision to work with famed producer Brendan O’Brien, whose résumé includes legendary work with artists like Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine, Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden. For a band now six albums deep into its career, bringing in a producer with O’Brien’s pedigree helped reignite something fundamental within the group.
“We recorded it with producer Brendan O’Brien, and it was the first time working with him, so that was a blast, and we looked to him as a mentor,” Cannata said.
According to Cannata, O’Brien’s approach pushed the band back toward the raw chemistry that first defined Young the Giant in its earliest days.
“There’s lots of momentum in the studio with Brendan,” Cannata explained. “He has a lot of experience working with bands. For us, as five members, he really kept the momentum in the studio. Good energy, but also he has just an incredible ear and he’s an incredible musician.”
Rather than endlessly layering sounds and polishing tracks into perfection, the band intentionally stripped things back and focused on live performance energy.
“We recorded a bulk of the material live together, and then punched it up from there,” Cannata said. “But we really wanted to capture the energy of all five of us in a room together.”
That represented a major philosophical shift for the band after years of increasingly detailed studio experimentation.
“Over the years, we’ve experimented and gotten further away from that,” Cannata said. “Our first record, we did it that way. We recorded all of it live in the studio and then did little punch-ups from there. But every record since then we’ve gone further and further away. We’ve gone down the rabbit hole of producing and building up tracks, and really getting into the sonics.”
With O’Brien steering the ship, Young the Giant rediscovered the urgency and spontaneity that can only happen when musicians share a room together.
“With Brendan, it was a conscious desire, as a band, to get back to being five people in a room playing together,” Cannata said. “And Brendan just captures that energy really well.”
That renewed spirit appears to be resonating with listeners as well. While Cannata admitted he doesn’t obsessively follow reviews or online reactions, he appreciates the positive response surrounding the album’s release.
“The reception, I would say, I’m not necessarily seeking it out, but from what I’ve seen, it looks good,” Cannata said. “Our amazing team has been doing a great job with the rollout and we’re just feeling, six albums in, every time we put out a record, it’s a bit of a different industry that we put a record out into.”
There’s a certain peace that comes with reaching that point in a band’s career — the understanding that once the music is released, it no longer belongs solely to the artists who created it.
“Our job, with at least the record side of things, is done,” Cannata said. “Now we just let it fly into the world.”
That mentality should make for an especially compelling live experience in Cleveland, where the band will have the opportunity to blend fresh material with fan favorites from throughout its catalog.
Of course, that creates its own challenge. Young the Giant now has six albums worth of songs to choose from, meaning difficult decisions must be made when assembling a setlist.
“We are currently working on that in real time,” Cannata said with a laugh. “We try to do a mix of catalog material, older material that we feel not only our audience wants to hear, but also making sure that we hit as much of the new album as we can.”
The balancing act is especially important because the band wants “Victory Garden” to remain the emotional centerpiece of the tour.
“It’s really the ‘Victory Garden’ tour and we want to honor the new songs and play as much of the new record as we can,” Cannata said. “There’s a number of songs we feel are very important to our audience that we play and then also songs from our catalog that almost play a supportive role to the new material.”
At the same time, the group recognizes that longtime fans want surprises and freshness, not simply a carbon copy of previous tours.
“It’s our sixth album and we do want our audience who are coming back and have seen the show before to feel like it’s fresh and vital to our show,” Cannata said.
That desire to create meaningful live experiences extends beyond the music itself. Earlier this year, Young the Giant participated in The Challenge event at the Abercrombie & Fitch headquarters near Columbus, Ohio, sharing the stage with Post Malone during an event designed to raise money and awareness for mental health organizations.
Cannata remembers the atmosphere as uniquely celebratory and uninhibited.
“I remember it being a good time,” Cannata said. “Lots of people were having a good time. It was very interesting to see Post Malone do his thing. I think that he is a full character, and I think that he really puts on a show.”
More importantly, the event reinforced why the band values opportunities to support causes connected to emotional well-being and mental health awareness.
“It’s incredible. It’s part of why we do what we do,” Cannata said. “As artists, we feel very grateful that we’re even able to do that type of thing. But for us, it’s constantly on our mind how to give back to our communities.”
Cannata noted that music itself often becomes a lifeline during difficult periods, both for listeners and for the artists creating it.
“We all struggle with mental health,” Cannata said. “And for us, music helps us so much to move forward in life and feel good about life, and feel hopeful.”
That sense of hope and belonging sits at the center of Young the Giant’s identity as a live band. At a time when social media outrage, political division and nonstop bad news dominate everyday life, Cannata believes concerts can still function as rare spaces where empathy and connection matter more than disagreement.
“That is everything to us,” Cannata said when asked about offering fans an escape from the turmoil of modern life. “I think Young the Giant, as a band, our goal is to be able to create a space at our shows for people to come and feel like they belong.”
That philosophy directly influenced the themes explored throughout “Victory Garden.”
“It’s really difficult, and that’s a lot about what our new record is about, is how difficult it is right now to have that empathy for people who have opposing views and to try to spread love even though there’s so much hate, and confusion, and technology, and being bombarded with all this bad news,” Cannata said.
Despite the heaviness of those themes, the band ultimately wants the live show to leave audiences feeling energized and hopeful rather than defeated.
“The goal on this tour and for this album [is] to be another beacon of light amongst so much beauty and light in this world,” Cannata said. “The choice to try to spread love and empathy is a conscious choice.”
That mindset feels especially fitting for a summer night at Jacobs Pavilion. Outdoor concerts have always carried a certain magic in Cleveland — the breeze coming off the river, city lights reflecting across the water, thousands of people momentarily forgetting their stress while singing along beneath an open sky.
Young the Giant’s music has long thrived in those environments, balancing introspective songwriting with sweeping melodies designed to be shouted back by massive crowds. Add in the anthemic energy of Cold War Kids and the sun-soaked indie-pop hooks of Almost Monday, and the result should be one of the season’s strongest opening salvos for Cleveland’s summer concert calendar.
For longtime fans, the show promises a celebration of everything Young the Giant has built across six albums. For newer listeners, it may serve as the perfect introduction to a band still evolving while remaining committed to connection, empathy and emotional honesty.
And if Cannata’s hopes for the tour come to life, fans leaving Jacobs Pavilion on May 27 won’t simply remember a concert. They’ll remember a shared experience — thousands of strangers gathering along the Cuyahoga River to sing together, escape together and maybe, for a few hours, feel a little more hopeful together too.
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