Review | The ‘Flood Tour’ with Hippo Campus

This Favorite Indie Band Washed L.A.’s The Wiltern with the Sounds of Their Most Vulnerable Record Yet

Hippo Campus at The Wiltern | Photo: Kat Sophia

Hippo Campus is that one band, for me, that I was always dancing on the edges of becoming obsessed with. I owned their records on vinyl but rarely played them, I listened to them in the car with friends but never alone. I never interrogated why, just enjoyed their music as it came to me.

But as I watched them perform live for the first time recently at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, I was taken aback by how immediately their playing grabbed hold of me. By the end of the night, I would come to figure out how that shift happened.

In 2013 after meeting at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists (SPCPA), the Minnesota indie-rock band Hippo Campus formed with members Jake Luppen (lead vocals/guitar), Nathan Stocker (lead guitar/vocals), Zach Sutton (bass/keyboard), and Whistler Isaiah Allen (drums/vocals). The band members studied jazz and classical music at SPCPA, and Luppen also trained in opera. On their Bandcamp, they call their most recent record, Flood, the “best album they’ve ever made…the sentiments on Flood are raw, real, and unguarded, a testament to Hippo Campus dropping preconceptions of how they had to sound after so many failed attempts to re-record these songs. They wiped the slate clean, starting over without beliefs about what Hippo Campus or this record needed to be.” It’s a shift away from the sunny and cerebral past records Bambi and Landmark to more raw sounds and production, as well as a shift into more authentic, lyrical storytelling.

The band started off the night with three songs from Flood: “Madman,” “Paranoid,” and “Tooth Fairy.” “Madman” has an emotionally charged, free flowing nature, with open instrumentation that led off the night with open arms. “Tooth Fairy” is a bit punchier, and “Paranoid” is an undeniably catchy, gripping, playful song that the band visibly enjoyed playing together. “Paranoid” was one of the highlights of the show, with the drums immediately sounding urgent and the entire crowd screaming and chanting along. It was the perfect three song run to start the evening off with life.

Hippo Campus also played some fan favorites from deeper in their catalogue, including hits “Bambi,” “Way It Goes,” “Buttercup,” and “South.” The band members all moved to each instrumental shift at the same time, and it was evident how long they’ve been playing together. It felt almost like a dance in and of itself, letting the emotions of the colliding instrumentation precariously fall onto them as it may.

Hippo Campus at The Wiltern | Photo: Kat Sophia

“South” is a personal favorite, it first got me into the band and was a treat to see live. It showcased Luppen’s vocal abilities, as he sang with an urgency and emotion that contrasted the irony in his voice sometimes in the band’s more self-aware/clever songs. Luppen bounced between singing seriously and playfully, donning shades and an electric guitar.

The most electric song of the show was the title track off their latest, Flood. Having not heard any of their newest release before, the organic sounds of their new sonic direction lent themselves perfectly to live performance. This was perhaps the most ideal example: a simple guitar riff, that was added to by the rest of the band until they all crashed and collided perfectly. The lyrics were also potent and vulnerable, “you want to take it easy, but easy don’t come for free…burn a pack a day, it’s only getting worse…trying to keep it up, the constant flood is not enough, the world is changing, pain and oxygen, they always win, the consequence is only human nature now.”

One lyric in particular struck me hard, repeated at the end of the chorus before the wave of sound as the band kicked in.

“Do I even believe what I’m talking about?”

It’s a good lyric to describe the shift as to why, as I came to find later in my research for this article, they went from being a clever, charming indie rock kit to punching me right in my gut. The admission of uncertainty is what pulled me in, and even if they’re unsure, ironically, I now really do believe what they’re talking about.

A transition into connection, from coolness to sincerity. I’m not just enjoying their music anymore, I’m in it.