Young Father’s bring some manic joy to Chicago’s Vic Theater

The crowd murmured in the ornate Vic Theater in Chicago, awash in an end-of-work week weariness and waiting for the main event to appear. Halfway through their Heavy Heavy tour, Young Fathers strode into the blue haze bathing the stage. The murmur burst into a roar of applause. The sound of a synthetic organ undulated through the air as they kicked the night off with an electric “Get Started”. 

As songwriters and producers, there’s no one who’s quite like Young Fathers’. Their sound defies classification, blurring the lines between hip-hop, punk, and gospel. Yet seeing them live, the Scottish trio becomes even more astoundingly unique. Their sense of rhythm is inescapable here. An almost mantric repetition, that pulses in and out genre, somewhere between chaos and tenderness. 

They served up a smorgasbord of past hits, from “The Queen is Dead” to “Shame” that enveloped the crowd in a manic energy. Their music is subversive and playful, yet often felt underserved by a sound production geared towards a larger space. An excessive amount of reverb on the vocals often drowned out the nuance.

At its best, Young Father’s pour out equal parts method and madness. Here it felt a bit closer to the latter, which left the punchiness of some of their work feeling redundant in a muddy wash of sound. 

The show was at its strongest when Alloysious Massaquoi’s vocals were at the helm. In “Tell Somebody” and “I Heard,” his voice cuts through the muddiness of the sound design allowing the group’s enigmatic but potent lyricism to shine. 

Regardless of the sound production, the energy of the night was undeniable. Tracks off their latest album Heavy, Heavy brought the crowd into a smiling, sweaty frenzy that felt akin to a church service. “Feel the beat of the drum and go numb. Have fun. Go on” The four voices sang together like a robeless choir, carrying the audience into a stage of fervency that felt revolutionary and still unstoppably joyful.