Danish pop-rockers New Politics unofficially kicked off their tenth-anniversary tour on Monday, June 17th in Burlington VT. Though the tour officially started in Brooklyn on June 19th, the band played in Burlington, and Portland, Maine the next night, to warm up for the tour.
I got the chance to sit down with David Boyd (vocals), Søren Hansen (vocals/guitar/uke/keys), and Louis Vecchio (drums) to discuss how they’ve changed in ten years, and what’s in their future, look out for the audio of that interview at the end of this review.
Opening up the show in Burlington was the local garage punk band, Grease Face, who blasted through a quick 23 minute set to get the crowd ready for New Politics.
In a surprise move, New Politics led off with their first hit single, “Yeah Yeah Yeah”, which in the past was typically the show-closer. It worked wonders to get the entire audience going, and the energy never dropped until the end of the show.
The band played for almost 90 minutes without leaving the stage, playing a fair share of songs from each of their album. In fact, it was almost equally split: four songs from each album except Vikings, which got five if you count a shortened rendition of “Girl Crush” which was eventually cut from the set due to an issue with their bass tracks.
A personal highlight for me was when the band played “We Are the Radio” one of my favorites from their self-titled debut.
Another memorable moment was Søren’s keys and vocal only rendition of “Stardust”, which was an emotional moment for many fans in attendance.
Towards the end of the set, the band performed the full-band live debut of their new single “Comeback Kid” only to be faced by more tech troubles. They eventually restarted the song and played it acoustic, but the energy was still 100% there – especially with the audience singing along to every word to help out the band.
Overall, the band did an amazing job of pleasing their fans old and new, in what seems to be one of their favorite cities to play – over their ten year career, they’ve played at Higher Ground no less than six times!
With great support from the local rock station, The Buzz, it’s no surprise that New Politics has a dedicated fanbase in Vermont, but it’s always great to see them come back again.
If you get the chance to check out New Politics, I highly recommend it. Their full tour dates are available on their website!
In the mean time, you can listen to the interview below:
Press photo by Brendan Walter.