Last night CHVRCHES returned to Chicago with another high-energy show in support of their third album Love Is Dead. Returning to the Aragon Ballroom four months after playing 101.1 WKQX’s The Nights We Stole Christmas, CHVRCHES were now in town for their first headlining show at the same venue playing to a packed and excited crowd.

Los Angeles based rock band Cherry Glazerr opened the night with a fun filled set of guitar and drum driven songs. They’re currently touring in support of their third studio album Stuffed & Ready.

As the venue filled to near-capacity the stage was set to a low-lit blue light and smoke. The crowd was on their feet and ready with anticipation when the bass dropped and the lights began to flash. Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, Martin Doherty and Jonny Scott were welcomed with a thunderous applause and returned that same energy from the first to last note.

Opening with “Get Out” followed by Mayberry’s line, “We are a band called CHVRCHES. Thank you very much for coming out to see us”. Throughout the setlist the crowd were treated to a mix of fan favorites from all three albums The Bones of What You Believe, Every Open Eye and Love Is Dead. After a thirteen-song main setlist the band returned for an encore featuring “The Mother We Share” and closing with “Never Say Die”.

Along with their fantastic performance came their usual funny banter and stories. Reminiscing about their last time in town with a stop in Uptown Arcade in which Lauren’s joystick on The Simpson’s game was broken so her character got pelted and how that could be a metaphor so she did not return yesterday in fear that it might be too much for her to take this time. Discussion about the C-word and how its meaning can be so much worse when used in America conversation versus its uses in British vocabulary. Speaking of vocabulary, Mayberry brought up that she has not seen the cultural phenomenon that is Game of Thrones except for a recent episode and gave us the word “swedge”, a Scottish term for sword play.

The band always seem to enjoy playing in Chicago and tonight seemed no different. Even with all of the recent online distractions from Chris Brown fans since the recent statement regarding his involvement with recent collaborator Marshmello, the band seemed quite upbeat and happy to be on stage.

CHVRCHES are always a fun band to see live and it’s an honor to cover them in our hometown with a short review and photo album. Thank you again CHVRCHES and special thanks to their manager Campbell for the chat yesterday along with all of your help, as well as Lauren at Glassnote Records.

Photos captured by Josh Terzino and edited by Kari Terzino of Music Defined for Lauren Mayberry Fans.

Setlist

Get Out
Bury It
We Sink
Graffiti
Graves
Miracle
Science/Visions
Under The Tide
Deliverance
Forever
Recover
Leave A Trace
Clearest Blue

Encore

The Mother We Share
Never Say Die

Earlier this week on Tuesday, May 22, 2018 I had the honor of attending CHVRCHES’ iHeartRadio album release party for Love Is Dead at the iHeartRadio Theater in New York City. What follows is a fan perspective from this event with CHVRCHES.

Less than 24 hours before my flight was to depart from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago I received the invite from iHeartRadio to attend this special album release party in Manhattan. Scrambling to make last minute travel arrangements and running on three hours of sleep before departure I arrived during the lunch hour on Tuesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York not yet knowing what the day had to behold.

Most of the afternoon consisted of waiting outside the front of 32 6th Ave in Manhattan, location of iHeartRadio’s theater within the building. Sharing stories of the band and music while waiting with the admin for CHVRCHES Fans World Wide, we ran into CHVRCHES’ lighting designer Louis Oliver and not long afterwards Iain Cook. I think Cook’s ears were burning because he appeared just seconds after I had mentioned his name, it was quite comical. Not seeing these lads in quite sometime it was nice to finally meet Oliver and to converse with the always friendly and humble Cook with a big smile.

With anticipation building after each passing hour and getting closer to showtime a few other fans started to line-up including New York based photographer Howard Shiau who shared the rail with us up front and took the amazing photos featured in this review.

Not long before our scheduled time to check-in at 7:30 PM was upon us we queued up with about ten people for a meet and greet with Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty. Although it was a quick meeting it’s always a pleasure to speak with such lovely people. Being the first two in line all day we were able to get front center on the rail in a room that would eventually hold about 75-100 people in total for the intimate show that was about to leave us in awe.

CHVRCHES took the stage around 9 PM kicking the night off with “Get Out”, followed by “Leave A Trace”, “Bury It”, “Miracle” and “The Mother We Share”. For the first half of their set, breaks were taken in between the five songs for short question and answer sessions with the host from iHeartRadio. Mayberry with her usual comedic banter was a delight as always.

Topics of discussion included working with The National’s Matt Berninger on “My Enemy”, working with Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, online dating apps, living in the United States, the addition of live drummer Jonny Scott, filming the “Miracle” music video and feedback from fans.




Following the question and answer session the band continued on with a stellar second half set featuring older favorites and new tracks including “Lies”, “Never Ending Circles”, “God’s Plan”, “We Sink”, “Forever”, “Graffiti”, “Recover”, “Clearest Blue” and closing with “Never Say Die”. For those of you who have not yet seen them in concert or experienced the new songs live, what I can say is that you’re in for a big treat!

I have been lucky enough to attend some amazing concerts including many from CHVRCHES but this day overall has to be one of the most memorable and certainly one I will never forget. Thank you to iHeartRadio for the invite. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, Martin Doherty, Jonny Scott and crew of CHVRCHES for the experience of a lifetime. Well done everyone!

Setlist

Get Out
Q+A
Leave A Trace
Q+A
Bury It
Miracle
Q+A
The Mother We Share
------------------------------
Lies
Never Ending Circles
God’s Plan
We Sink
Forever
Graffiti
Recover
Clearest Blue
Never Say Die

Love Is Dead is available now worldwide.

Photos courtesy of Howard Shiau Photography. Setlist photo by Lauren Mayberry Fans.

Two nights ago, CHVRCHES played a secret show at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago for Spotify employees. A few handfuls of lucky FANCLVB members including myself also received invites to this special performance. I spoke with several Spotify employees, many of whom were not familiar with the band but based on their reactions throughout and afterwards CHVRCHES picked up quite a few new fans from this evening.

Although the photos from my phone in the gallery above are far from good quality you can still get an idea of the excitement from this show. Thank you again for the invite CHVRCHES. You certainly made my week.

Setlist

Never Ending Circles

We Sink

Keep You on My Side

Empty Threat

Playing Dead

Gun

High Enough to Carry You Over

Under the Tide

Recover

Bury It

Leave a Trace

Clearest Blue

The Mother We Share

From the first note to the last beat CHVRCHES put on a whirlwind of a show this past Sunday, March 13th, their first of two sold-out shows at the Riviera Theatre in Chicago. Lead singer Lauren Mayberry’s silhouette with raised fist cast upon a beaming white light led the charge from the start with a lively version of “Never Ending Circles” to kick off the show flanked by band mates Iain Cook and Martin Doherty working their setup of samplers and synthesizers. Feeding off the energy of the crowd all three members enthusiastically gave back everything they had through “We Sink”, “Keep You On My Side” and “Make Them Gold” to round out the opening set of songs.

Following the openers the band took a quick break to converse with the crowd mentioning Chicago may very well be their most played city which Doherty loosely referred to on Twitter earlier in the day as their second home. The Chicago crowd responded with their thunderous approval. Delightful and funny, Mayberry chatted up the crowd several times throughout the show with entertaining banter about pun skills, a dream about being Justin Bieber’s emotional rock and a dislike for a certain presidential candidate named Trump.

Set to a backdrop of striking visuals from their lighting crew at Okulus, thumping bass, synthesizer bliss and magnificent vocals the trio from Glasgow, Scotland traded songs from both their 2013 debut album The Bones of What You Believe and their 2015 sophomore release Every Open Eye. Fist pumping, head banging, jumping and twirling about the stage Mayberry’s new found confidence on stage was fun to watch and truly inspiring. Her newly added V-drums for this tour are quite epic as well as she smashes her way through several songs that nicely incorporate them into the show.

Doherty also took his turn on lead vocals with the highly anticipated live debut of “High Enough To Carry You Over” much to the delight of the crowd followed by fan favorite dance fest “Under The Tide”.


Powerful hit singles “Recover”, “Leave A Trace” and a banger of a performance of “Clearest Blue” concluded the main set. With the crowd ready for more the band reemerged for an encore featuring a beautiful rendition of “Afterglow” followed by their sing along anthem “The Mother We Share” to close out the show.

Blazing through a mix of songs from both albums fans were left in a state or euphoria clamoring for more. Based on all the smiles we saw exciting the venue and into the night we assume many returned for their second sold-out show the following night also at the Riviera Theatre in Chicago.

We also had the honor of shooting the first few songs from this show. Take a look above at our album of wonderful photos captured by Kari Terzino Photography for Lauren Mayberry Fans.

Setlist

Never Ending Circles

We Sink

Keep You On My Side

Make Them Gold

Empty Threat

Tether

Playing Dead

Science/Visions

Gun

Bury It

High Enough To Carry You Over (live debut)

Under The Tide

Recover

Leave A Trace

Clearest Blue

Encore

Afterglow

The Mother We Share

Although we couldn’t get our entire group out to Columbus, Ohio this Wednesday to celebrate Lauren Mayberry’s birthday our fella was on hand to celebrate the special occasion. For those who contributed take a look below to see how Lauren's gift turned out. Because we probably won’t see band mates Iain Cook and Martin Doherty along with tour manager Cara McDaniel on their respective birthdays we celebrated the occasion with gifts for each to them and from their reactions and comments think it was a hit. We tried our best to get each one of them something they’re truly passionate about. This was our way of giving back and saying thank you once again Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, Martin Doherty and Cara McDaniel.

Our fella and his guest Tyler had the amazing opportunity to spend the afternoon with the band for CHVRCHES & PVMPKINS & MVSIC in the CD102.5 Big Room. First they enjoyed a private show broadcasted live on radio that included a sensational performance of their songs “Leave A Trace”, “Afterglow” and “The Mother We Share”. After the performance attendees got to paint pumpkins with the band followed by a meet and greet where our gifts were presented to Lauren, Iain, Martin and Cara.

Our present to the birthday girl was a book full of birthday wishes that also included each person’s name, location and optionally how Lauren inspires them and a photo if submitted. We wanted to create something special from all of us fans and we know Lauren loves to read so we hope this will be one of her new favorites in her book collection.

@LaurenMayberryF @lostandfounduk Thank you guys for the lovely book ❤️

— Lauren Mayberry (@laurenevemay) October 8, 2015

The book also included our interpretation of Lauren as a superhero. A rather funny comment ensued from Lauren but we won’t repeat that here.

We know Iain is a Star Wars junkie and had a tough time not knowing what his collection might already include but we ended up presenting him an authentic autograph from the one and only Star Wars creator himself, George Lucas! His excitement factor said it all.

Proof positive if it were ever needed that our fans are the best. Thank so much @LaurenMayberryF for this gift ❤️ pic.twitter.com/5vGJSXZ7Wt

— Iain Cook (@Iain_A_Cook) October 7, 2015

We love Martin’s collection of hats and shirts so we opted to get him a hat from our home city of Chicago. Although we don’t all live in Chicago anymore all of us have at some point in time and still call it our city. Being football season right now we got Martin a fancy Chicago Bears hat with flat bill as he prefers. Our fella got to briefly discuss favorite football and futbol teams with Martin and here is to hoping he can bring our team in Chicago some good luck when the band comes to town in a couple of weeks to play the historic Metro for a sold out show on Saturday, October 24th.

Tour manager Cara is a strong supporter of animal rights so we got her all set for 2016 with a calendar from PETA that includes colorful photos of animals along with stories about how each was rescued and important dates for animal rights related anniversaries and victories.

Later in the evening a truly unforgettable concert by CHVRCHES was taken in at the LC Pavilion in Columbus, Ohio to cap off an amazing day.

Setlist

Never Ending Circles

We Sink

Keep You On My Side

Lies

Make Them Gold

Tether

Science/Visions

Empty Threat

Clearest Blue

Under The Tide

Gun

Bury It

Recover

Leave A Trace

Encore

Afterglow

The Mother We Share