There’s a moment every year when the calendar quietly flips a switch, and suddenly the season of indoor shows—of stuffy clubs, coat checks, and that one guy spilling an $18 beer down your back—gives way to something far more glorious: outdoor concert season. And nothing announces that arrival quite like a near-capacity crowd gathering riverside on a warm Cleveland evening, the Cuyahoga glittering behind the stage, the breeze doing its best to make everyone feel like they’re in a music video. Officially, summer doesn’t start until the solstice. Unofficially? It starts the first time you’re swaying under an open sky while a band you love tears into a setlist. By that metric, Cleveland’s summer began on May 27 at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica—and Young the Giant were more than happy to fire the starting gun.
The show was a near sell-out, and for good reason. Aside from a one-off date in Las Vegas, this was the true first stop of the band’s summer trek—the proper kickoff to the Victory Garden Tour—and the energy in the venue reflected the buzz of opening night. There’s a particular electricity to a tour’s first real stop: the band is hungry, the kinks are still being charmingly worked out, and the crowd knows they’re witnessing something fresh out of the box.
For the uninitiated, Young the Giant’s story is a quintessentially American one—even if their sound has always felt a little more worldly than their California roots suggest. Formed in Irvine, California, the band coalesced around frontman Sameer Gadhia, guitarists Jacob Tilley and Eric Cannata, bassist Payam Doostzadeh, and drummer François Comtois—a lineup whose multicultural backgrounds (Indian, British, Persian, French-Canadian) have long informed the rich, genre-blurring textures of their music. They first detonated into the mainstream with their 2010 self-titled debut, riding the breakout success of “Cough Syrup” and “My Body,” the latter of which became something of an alt-rock anthem for an entire generation of kids who shouted “My body tells me no, but I won’t quit” into their car ceilings.
Sixteen years and several reinventions later, the band arrives in Cleveland in support of ‘Victory Garden,’ their sixth studio album—and a genuine milestone in their catalog. As guitarist Eric Cannata shared in a pre-show interview with CleveRock, ‘Victory Garden’ marks the first time in many years that the band wrote collectively, all in one room as a true unit—and, in his words, the result came out even better than they’d hoped. It’s a creative homecoming you could feel onstage all night.
Here’s where Young the Giant earned some serious respect. In an era when bands often pack setlists with greatest hits to keep the algorithm-fed casual fan happy, YTG leaned gloriously old-school. Of the 22 songs they performed, nine came from ‘Victory Garden.’ That’s a band touring the way bands used to—primarily to plug a new record and let it breathe in front of a live audience, rather than treating the new material as filler between the hits.
That commitment meant a few beloved fan favorites had to sit this one out, a trade-off that purists will applaud and casual fans might grumble about. But that’s the gamble of conviction, and it paid off. The new songs didn’t feel like homework—they felt like the main event.
If there’s a single reason the new material landed so effortlessly, it’s Sameer Gadhia. The man is, simply put, one of the most magnetic frontmen working today. He doesn’t just sing—he conducts a crowd, prowling the stage with the confidence of a bandleader who knows exactly how to read a room and bend it to his will. Whether coaxing a singalong, holding a note until the rafters rattled, or unleashing those signature, full-body dance moves, Gadhia kept the audience locked in from the first downbeat to the last. Even when many in attendance were hearing ‘Victory Garden’ tracks for the very first time, he made them feel like instant classics.
The new singles slotted in seamlessly alongside the catalog’s heavy hitters. “Different Kind of Love,” “Bitter Fruit,” “Already There,” and the band’s most recent single, “Evergreen,” all proved sturdy enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the older material—no small feat. The melodic DNA that made the band famous is still very much present, just deepened by the chemistry of their collaborative writing process.
There were several standout moments throughout the night. “Bitter Fruit” (the third song of the night) closed with a gorgeous, unexpected outro: a snippet of The Beatles’ “Blackbird”—a tender, goosebump-inducing left turn that drew an audible gasp of delight from the crowd. Early-ish in the set, the stage set quite literally “bloomed”—an evocative bit of staging (a garden, get it?) that drew a genuine emotional response from the appreciative crowd. It was the kind of theatrical flourish that ties the whole Victory Garden concept together without feeling gimmicky. And during “This Too Shall Pass,” a fan in the pit required medical attention, prompting the band to pause the show so they could receive care. It was a class act—safety over spectacle—and once the situation was handled, the band, consummate professionals to their core, re-engaged the crowd quickly and seamlessly, as if to honor the song’s very title.
And of course, the crowd-pleasers from the 2010 self-titled debut sent the place into orbit. “Cough Syrup” and “My Body” remain bulletproof, the kind of songs that turn a near-sold-out amphitheater into one giant, swaying choir.
While Gadhia is undeniably the headline act, it would be a disservice not to spotlight guitarists Eric Cannata and Jacob Tilley. Their interplay is the quiet engine of the band’s sound—the shimmering, atmospheric textures and the muscular riffs that give Young the Giant its distinctive depth. It’s an element that often goes underappreciated by fans focused on the frontman, but on a night like this, their contributions were impossible to ignore.
The band closed the night with “Mind Over Matter,” their top-15 hit from 2014, sending the crowd home on a soaring high. And then—they were done. No encore. No fake exit, no obligatory two-minute stage-light blackout while everyone pretends they don’t know the band is coming back. Young the Giant have made clear they find the ritual unnecessary, and honestly? It’s a refreshingly honest move. They gave the crowd 22 songs of substance and trusted the music to do the talking.
One final detail worth celebrating: the limited-edition vinyl the band sold at the merch table came packaged with a biodegradable card embedded with wildflower seeds, so fans can literally grow their own “victory garden” at home. It’s the kind of thoughtful, on-theme touch that elevates merch from a transaction into a keepsake—a living, growing souvenir of a night spent under the open Cleveland sky. In a world of disposable tour swag, that’s genuinely special, and a perfect metaphor for a band still putting down roots and blooming sixteen years into their career.
Direct support act Cold War Kids proved exactly why they remain one of indie rock’s most reliable live acts. As the early-evening light spilled over the venue, frontman Nathan Willett commanded the crowd with his soulful, gravelly vocals, leading the band through a tight, energetic run of fan favorites and newer material alike. The set built to an electric, sing-along peak with set-closer “First,” while the swaggering piano stomp of “Hang Me Up to Dry” had the growing audience on their feet well before the headliners arrived. Fans were even treated to the live debut of CWK’s of “Push My Luck.” Far from a perfunctory warm-up, Cold War Kids delivered a passionate, polished performance that set the perfect tone for the night and left no doubt they could have headlined the bill themselves.
Due to a box office mix-up, our team missed a good chunk of opening act almost monday’s set. The nine song set from the trio of surfers included a new song, “Skinny Dip,” and closed with “life goes by.” While the band apparently shies away from using capital letter, their music invokes JOY (all caps) with their fun vibes and crafty musicianship. There’s a maturity to their live show that belies the breezy lightness of their sound and genuine stage presence, and a setlist that moved with intention from first note to last. Keep an eye out on Cleveland’s larger capacity clubs. They’ll be riding the waves back to the shores of Lake Erie soon.
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