We Were Promised Jetpacks – 10/23/22
▣Headliners Music Hall | Louisville, KY ▣Sunday, October 23rd 2022
▣Photographer/Journalist: Jesse Yarbrough
We Were Promised Jetpacks stopped by Headliners Music Hall in Louisville, KY on October 23 during their US tour.
Headliners is an independently owned and operated music venue, that has been open since prohibition when it served as a cafeteria and practice hall for big bands. Patrons could come and watch bands rehearse while drinking “medicinal” bourbon.
Opening the show were Louisville natives Anemic Royalty. This four-piece “party punk” band has been a local staple since 2014 and one of the few local acts to have been included in the Louder Than Life (2019) line-up.
Anemic Royalty opened strong, ripping through a short set with no shortage of energy. This is an act that, while young, shows real talent and promise. They are an undeniably fun act to watch and by the end of their set, I caught myself singing along with their choruses despite never having heard the song before. Anemic Royalty is releasing its first full-length album on October 29, 2022, on all streaming platforms.
Breakup Shoes hail from Phoenix, AZ, was formed in 2014. Described as “sweet Phoenician boys making sweet tunes 4 ur sweet ears” on their Bandcamp site, the quartet met as college students and have achieved increasingly wider audiences since 2016 when they released their five-track EP Nicotine Dream and have toured with national acts like Summer Salt.
Their most recent EP, Narratives, was released in 2019 and is available on all streaming platforms.
Upon taking the stage, Breakup Shoes provided a more laidback set as compared with Anemic Royalty. The sound mix was perfect and it was easy to see why this act has been playing increasingly larger shows. Interestingly, the members that started the set playing guitar and bass would switch instruments every couple of songs. I’m not sure the reason for this, but it made for an interesting dynamic.
We Were Promised Jetpacks from Edinburgh, Scotland, formed in 2003, releasing their debut album, These Four Walls in 2009 on Fat Cat Records. The album reached No. 27 on the US Billboard Heatseekers charts and was followed by In the Pit of the Stomach (2011), Unravelling (2014), The More I Sleep The Less I Dream (2018), and Enjoy the View (2021). Their latest EP, A Complete One-Eighty is scheduled for release in December 2022.
WWPJ performed to a fully engaged audience that was delighted with every song. Occasionally you’ll see acts that are so energetic on stage that their playing becomes sloppy, but not so with this act. Every note and beat was spot on and each song’s intro was met with loud cheers from the audience.
“Pear Tree” was an unexpected highlight of the set as it featured singer/guitarist Adam Thompson playing so quietly you could have heard a cellphone ring and singing without the use of a microphone in a way that was not only impressive but gave me cold chills from the raw emotion in his powerful voice.
“Quiet Little Voices” was reserved for late in the set and was teased by a couple of false starts before launching into the anthem.
Just prior to their last song, WWPJ announced that they “don’t do the fake thing where we pretend to leave” and that “this really is our last song… unless you want us to pretend to leave now” which was a welcome relief as I’ve always found the encore routine a bit disingenuous.
The group kicked off their US tour on October 7th in Columbus, Ohio, and have just a few more dates left in this run of shows, ending on October 30th in Jersey City, NJ.
Check out our contributing photographer, Jesse Yarbrough’s photos now!
Anemic Royalty
Breakup Shoes
We Were Promised Jetpacks
Check out the band’s websites for more info –