Still Young, Plenty Giant

Though Young the Giant hails from originally Orange County, the band is no stranger to our little slice of heaven. For them, playing in Santa Barbara feels like a hometown show.

At least, that’s what the band’s lead guitarist, Jacob Tilley, told me a few days before their Saturday, July 18, performance at the Santa Barbara Bowl.

“It’s one of our favorite venues in the country,” he said.

Long before the band found mainstream success, Tilley recalled making the trip to Santa Barbara to play downtown venues such as Sandbar, as well as gigs on UCSB’s campus and at fraternity parties.

Six studio albums, spouses, kids, and more than 20 years later, Tilley says that while a lot has changed, the group remains committed to the values and spirit on which it was founded.

That mindset carried into the band’s latest album. Released May 1, Victory Garden is what Tilley describes as “a fresh coat of paint,” but also an ode to their humble beginnings. To write it, the band hunkered down in Idyllwild and Joshua Tree, places where ideas naturally seem to flow and where, in some ways, they recreated the early days of living together again.

“I think this record was us claiming kind of our destiny of really owning what Young the Giant is,” said Tilley, “and not really shying away from the things that make Young the Giant Young the Giant.”

When I arrived at the Bowl that Saturday night to see the band perform live, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I had seen them only once before, when they opened for Cage the Elephant a few years back, though I don’t remember much about that show.

It was a warm summer night at the Bowl, the kind where every gust of wind feels less like a breeze and more like someone just opened a giant industrial oven.

After opening performances from Cold War Kids and Beach Weather, Young the Giant sauntered onto the stage with the kind of coolness that proves they’ve been doing this for a long time.

Bassist Payam Doostzadeh led the group, followed by guitarist Eric Cannata, drummer François Comtois, and Tilley. Everyone kept their outfits laid-back, mostly jeans and T-shirts. Lead singer Sameer Gadhia appeared last, dressed in an all-black monochrome look.

The group kicked things off with “Evergreen” from Victory Garden. Behind them stood five oversized prop flowers that doubled as the show’s primary lighting. Throughout the set, the flowers shifted colors as though changing emotions, matching each song’s mood.

Listening to the band jam, I returned to my conversation with Tilley about how “Evergreen” came to be. “That was a late-night jam,” he said.

The group was on its final writing retreat in Joshua Tree when Tilley stepped outside to watch the sunset. “I pulled up a sound, opening sound on that track, and that bass line just kind of happened straight away.” 

Back onstage, Gadhia with his polished voice, belted the song’s stuck-in-your-head lyrics: “Call it a victory / Once in a century / Hope you’ll remember me / In the shade under the evergreen.”

They followed with more tracks from Victory Garden — “Already There,” “Ships Passing,” and “Mona Lisa” — while weaving in a healthy mix of longtime favorites like “My Body,” “Silvertongue,” and “Something to Believe In.” 

It was hard not to hone in on Gadhia, who bopped around the stage like a ping-pong ball, darting around, letting the music take him wherever it pleased. I wondered how he had so much energy.

About halfway through the set, Gadhia reflected on the band’s inception more than 20 years ago and how far they’ve come.

“We were so young,” he said. “We were so green, we didn’t know anyone in the music industry…. We had this belief in ourselves.”

A voice in the audience yelled for him to “Fuck the haters!” which elicited laughs.

At that, someone in the standing section flung something at Gadhia: a bra.

“It’s been way too long, thank you,” he laughed.

He spoke of Victory Garden and some of its themes, the main one being this idea of “radical empathy,” which he said, “has always been a form of resistance.”

The band segued into “Different Kind of Love,” from Victory Garden, which carries a more serious tone than the other songs on the album, slowing the night’s momentum in favor of a more introspective moment.

Then came “Cough Syrup,” which has always been the quintessential cruising-down-the-freeway-with-the-windows-down kind of song for me. Just the opening alone, “Life’s too short to even care at all,” encapsulates everything great about a feel-good song. It leaves you thinking, You know what? You’re right. Life is too short, and everything really will be okay.

The same goes for “Mind Over Matter,” which, even more than a decade later, still has a grip on Young the Giant fans, me included. Something about the ethereal, almost trance-like tune pulls one, inextricably, into the present moment. Gadhia’s abilities really shone through here; his bellows, notably during his extended “oooooooo,” gave me goosebumps. I couldn’t think of a better song to close out their Bowl set.

On the drive home, I thought back to my conversation with Tilley, who reflected on the band’s early ambitions and how, even after all these years, they still feel there’s more to accomplish.

“We did have a big rise,” he said, “but you know we’re not Maroon 5 or Coldplay, and for that I’m almost grateful, because it’s allowed us to continue to want to be better all the time.”