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Brianna Collins, vocalist for Tigers Jaw, sings during the band's March 5 performance at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  

Brianna Collins, vocalist for Tigers Jaw, sings during the band's March 5 performance at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  

Concert Review: Opener shines in Tigers Jaw performance

The mysterious Meow Wolf played host to a night of rock ‘n’ roll fun, with the indie rock band, Tigers Jaw.

The band is currently touring its new album, “Spin,” and is joined by the female-led bands, Looming and Yowler.

Looming proved to be a lot — like four electric guitars at once a lot.

Their performance was headed by lead singer Jessica Knight, whose yelpy falsetto caught the attention of anyone who might have been wandering around the still open Meow Wolf exhibits.

Next up after Looming was the sweet voice of frontwoman Maryn Jones of Yowler. With songs off of their critically acclaimed debut album, “The Offer,” Yowler brought personality and a warm presence to an antsy audience. Maryn started Yowler’s set off with a solo performance. After her first song, a guitarist and drummer joined her on stage to aid the next few songs.

To end Yowler’s performance, the drummer and guitarist left the stage once again to leave Maryn alone to end their set with another solo performance. Similar to a good book or movie, the story ends where it began. Yowler’s set felt complete once it came full circle with Maryn’s solo performance.

The same can’t be said for Tigers Jaw’s set.

Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins make up the face of Scranton, Pennsylvania’s second-most famous duo next to the rapping duo of Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute (I’m so sorry. Editor’s note: No, he’s not). All jokes aside, Tigers Jaw was not the best indie rock performance I have seen. Similar to past indie shows, Tigers Jaw felt the need to be unnecessarily moody.

Their overall performance seemed to be on a constant lull for the first five or so songs until they played their sing-along song, “Plane vs.Tank vs. Submarine,” which can only be described as an emo smash hit.

Then Tigers Jaw went on to perform yet another set of forgettable songs. This dry spell of songs was broken toward the end of their performance by my favorite song of theirs, “June.

“June” includes Tigers Jaw’s best asset, the voice of Brianna Collins.

Collins is the real talent of the of the duo, yet during their Meow Wolf performance she was more of a back-up performer to Walsh, who is moderately talented, but far less captivating once Collins takes center stage.

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Throughout the performance, a half-deflated, heart-shaped balloon slowly hovered over the audience. Every now and then it would slowly float down low enough for the audience members to jump up and swat it back into the air.

At times this sad wrinkly balloon felt more interesting than the music being performed in front of me — the audience’s fascination for the wrinkly balloon made it clear that Tigers Jaw had lost their fans’ attention.

It was not until their encore performance that the collection of 60 or so concertgoers found what they were looking for — finally hearing well-played music not draped in melancholy. During the last two songs of the night the small crowd began to have fun, mosh pits formed, fans began to crowd surf and faces lit up with huge smiles.

This only lasted about 10 minutes, though. Once Tigers Jaw finished their encore songs, they thanked their fans and left for the night. Tigers Jaw’s fast exit showed a lack of showmanship on their part. Providing a memorable ending to the night could have happened if they kept playing and feeding their fans a few more songs just to keep the excitement going.

Unless future Tigers Jaw shows find their rhythm, fans across the country will find themselves bored out of their minds. In fact this felt like a backwards concert, where I would have much preferred to see Tigers Jaw as an opener to the real star of the evening — Yowler.

Colton Newman is the photo editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached by email at photoeditor@dailylobo.com or on Instagram @cnewman101.

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