Three aliens, a nine-foot bunny and a crowd-surfing flamingo—needless to say, if you missed STRFKR on Wednesday evening, you missed a thrilling, interactive concert.
It was the band’s fifth time in El Paso, where they are notorious for making stops in the Sun City. They’ve toured here five of the last six years and have built a large local following.
On a beautiful Wednesday evening, STRFKR rolled through with indie-rock band The Reptilian, who opened the show.
Through a near hour and a half set, STRFKR stormed the Tricky Falls stage in the band’s U.S. tour and captivated the intimate Tricky Falls audience throughout their set.
Josh Hodges, the band’s lead singer and keys, started the show with a harmonic mum of synthesizers, followed by the band joining him on stage, including drummer Keil Corcoran, bassist Shawn Glassford and guitarist Patrick Morris. They opened up with “Hungry Ghost,” a more laid-back track, but quickly followed it up with “Tape Machine,” which is more upbeat.
An exceptional craft the band possessed on Wednesday was their ability to transition from song to song with such detail. Midway, the band transitioned from “Lucky,” which had only a few people in the crowd singing along, to their hit, “Ronald Gregory Erickson the Second,” which erupted the audience. The band truly had everyone in the building captivated and they were in full command.
Humorously enough, the band brought out three dancing aliens and a dancing bunny, who trotted throughout the stage and would surf the crowd from song to song. This goofy addition added an extra thrill to the show.
Venturing through crowd favorites like “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” among others, the band left the stage after playing “Golden Light.” However, they returned for a two-track encore, playing “Leave it All Behind” and “Maps.” They left out hits like “Isabel of Castile” and “Julius,” but it didn’t take away from the fantastic show.
