What better way to celebrate my birthday than with a concert?! Technically, Inhaler was in town the day before my birthday, but still.
The tickets for this show went on sale ages ago and when I saw it pop up I didn’t give much thought into getting one for the evening. While Inhaler are not heavy in any sort of rotation for me, I do really, really enjoy a few of their songs, and I did also find their latest full length album to be quite good. Even though the lead singer of this band is Bono’s son, that doesn’t mean they too are selling out stadiums. No, instead they are playing one of Cleveland’s more modest venues, but the crowd there was enthusiastic.
And I have to say, Elijah was also super enthusiastic. But before I get into Inhaler’s set, let’s talk about their opening band, Ignant Benches. Is that a name I totally remembered before I started typing? Absolutely not. In fact, I can barely remember if they ever even mentioned the name of their band. I did catch that they were from the west coast, but they could have passed for a British band if they really wanted to. For me never hearing of these guys, most of their songs sounded really polished and filled out. There wasn’t a whole lot of range in the vocals, but what he could do was good at least. They also had some good chemistry on stage and sometimes that’s half the battle. Will I check these guys out in the future? Hard telling, if I’m being honest.
When Inhaler took the stage, it wasn’t to much fanfare, but they opened with popular track, “These Are the Days.” I don’t know that I find that to be a particularly great song to start off a show, but from what I do know from the band, almost everything else would have sounded like this. They don’t have too many explosive songs that really grab you immediately or get the atmosphere pumped from the get-go. In fact, I kind of think the follow-up track, “Love Will Get You There” might have been a better choice. I was most excited to hear “When It Breaks,” so I’m glad that one is still popular enough to have made the cut.
As I was saying before, Elijah has some incredible energy on the stage, but I’d also hope so given that his dad has been a rock superstar for his entire life. Those are just some things I imagine you could pick up on over the years. Who didn’t get that memo? The rest of the band. They might as well have been playing at a cemetery. They sounded great, don’t get me wrong, but it felt like I was watching two different shows between the lead singer and the rest of the band. Elijah also had excellent crowd engagement, and I’m sure there were several swooning fans in the audience thinking they were getting singled out at various points throughout the show.
All in all, I was happy with the evening and I was glad I gave these guys a chance in a live setting. Will I jump on tickets in the future? Probably not unless they release something I find to be mind-blowing, but still. It was a nice one-off.