MOD SUN and lovelytheband to perform co-headline show in Omaha

Alternative artists MOD SUN and lovelytheband are bringing their co-headliner “Here’s Your Flowers Tour" to Omaha’s Slowdown on Oct. 9. The show features two openers: No Love For The Middle Child and HONESTAV. 

“It’s a stacked night,” Jack Hansen-Reed, the marketing manager at Slowdown, said. “For club shows, you don't often get four touring acts on a show. It's going to be a special one. It's going to be big.” 

MOD SUN is a seasoned performer who has known Mitchy Collins, the lead singer of lovelytheband, for years. The collaboration was first announced this summer, and the tour kicked off in San Francisco on Sept. 28. 

“The tour is the best show I’ve done, so if anyone's seen me before, this is the show that you don't want to miss,” MOD SUN said. “I'm really giving (the show) this whole experience of every chapter that I've done within music, and that being backed by this beautiful band that I have out with me (makes) the energy special.” 

MOD SUN said his “hippy hop” music is backed by string instruments on this tour, creating a new sound for his show. He will play music spanning his entire career, from the first song he ever wrote to an unreleased song he made a month ago. 

“You want every show to be incredible, but there's ups and downs, there's ebbs, flows in it, and that's what makes this amazing,” MOD SUN said. “That's what makes life amazing. I look at each show like its own life.”

MOD SUN got into the music scene as a drummer. He has a unique connection to Nebraska, despite being from Minnesota. He used to frequent The Rock, a now-closed concert venue, in Papillion. 

“(Omaha) means the world to me. I started my career in Omaha. It's where I felt at home and actually felt like we were having really good shows outside of our hometown,” MOD SUN said. 

The “Here’s Your Flowers” tour recently entered the Midwest with a show at the Granada in Lawrence, Kansas on Oct. 7.

“I’m looking forward to the energy of the Midwest that I get every time I go there,” MOD SUN said.

MOD SUN’s latest release is his single, “Hotel Lights.” He said the song started as a piano and acoustic ballad, before morphing into the song it is now. The music video for the song was filmed at MOD SUN’s cabin in Los Angeles, filled with cinematic shots. The video focuses on aesthetic rather than the linear storylines MOD SUN is used to when creating videos. 

“I feel like I've tried to write that song 20 different times in my career, that style of song that makes me feel that way,” MOD SUN said. “It's actually really special to me that I never gave up on wanting that feeling of the song, and I kept going until I felt like I did it. And I feel like that song will always hold that special place in my career.”

While MOD SUN said he tries his best to live in the moment and take the tour show by show, he is simultaneously working on a new album while on the road. 

“I am making music that can encapsulate my whole journey into one body of work,” MOD SUN said. “I'm building a world around this album that is so authentically me.” 

The Slowdown is a more intimate venue that allows for more connection between an artist and the listeners. Compared to a bigger arena, the Slowdown has fans and artists just feet apart.

“In a setting like that (it is) incredibly powerful to see an artist you really connect with that close and, maybe in person for the first time,” Hansen-Reed said. “But equally, it’s maybe even more exciting to find a new artist that you didn't know about and see them live for the first time, and be exposed to what they're all about.” 

Tickets are still available for Wednesday’s night show and can be purchased online or at the Slowdown’s box office during regular business hours. The show is all ages. Doors open at 6 p.m. with the show starting at 7 p.m.  

Published for the Daily Nebraskan, read here.