Concert Review: Future Islands (Cat's Cradle)

BY DREW DRAIN

There are bands you discover instantly, and there are bands that slowly circle your orbit for years before finally landing directly in front of you. Jenny Besetzt was the second kind for me. I had friends recommending them for what feels like forever. The sort of recommendation that keeps popping up from people whose taste you trust enough to pay attention to. “You’d love them.” Every few months someone would mention them again, usually with the kind of mild disbelief reserved for somebody admitting they’ve never seen Jaws or never eaten good barbecue.

So when Future Islands announced three sold out nights at Cat’s Cradle and Jenny Besetzt was opening the final show, it finally happened. First time seeing them. Long overdue.

They were fantastic. Not “good opener” fantastic either. Not “pleasant surprise before the headliner” fantastic. They walked out there and immediately felt like a band with history, confidence, and their own gravitational pull. The room was already packed early, which says something about both the draw of Future Islands and the loyalty Jenny Besetzt has built around North Carolina for years. Nobody was treating the opener like background music while waiting for the main event. People were locked in from the beginning.

Jenny Besetzt sounded huge without losing warmth. You could hear echoes of college radio ghosts floating around the room, but nothing felt nostalgic or trapped in amber. They sounded alive. Urgent. The kind of band that makes you remember why local music scenes matter in the first place. And honestly, they were the perfect runway into Future Islands.

I first saw Future Islands at Hopscotch in 2013, back when they still felt like one of the best kept secrets in indie rock. Even then, there was already mythology around them. Before I ever saw the band myself, Jeremy had told me stories about the legendary Berkeley Cafe show in Raleigh like he was describing some lost hardcore bootleg or a religious experience. Then I finally saw them at Hopscotch and understood immediately.

Samuel T. Herring did not perform like anyone else. He still doesn’t. Even now, after television appearances and festival headlines and years of increasingly deserved recognition, there is still something deeply unpredictable about watching him move through a set. It feels less choreographed than exorcised. One second he is crooning with heartbreaking sincerity, the next he is growling from somewhere deep in his chest like he is trying to physically force the songs into existence.

Before the show, I ended up meeting Sam’s parents inside the Cradle, which somehow made the whole night feel even more grounded and human. They were warm and proud in the understated way parents often are when they have watched years of work slowly become something bigger than anyone originally imagined. There is something beautiful about seeing that side of a musician whose stage presence can feel almost mythic. You remember there are decades behind all of it. Vans. Tiny clubs. Financial uncertainty. Endless touring. Parents hoping their kid’s strange dream somehow works out.

Three sold out nights at Cat’s Cradle says a lot about the relationship this band still has with North Carolina. Even after all the growth and international touring, this still feels like home turf for them. There is history in those walls, and Sam made sure everybody in the room understood that.

At several points during the show, he talked about coming to Cat’s Cradle as a teenager and watching bands there long before he ever imagined headlining the room himself. You could hear genuine emotion in his voice when he talked about it. The teenager standing in the crowd years ago somehow became the guy commanding three sold out nights on that exact stage.

What has always made Future Islands interesting to me is that tension between the sound and the subject matter. On the surface, a lot of these songs feel catchy, immediate, even joyful. The synth lines shimmer. The choruses stick instantly. Entire rooms start dancing within seconds. But if you stop moving long enough to really absorb the lyrics, there is usually something much darker underneath it all. Loneliness. Regret. Aging. Fear. Failed relationships. The exhausting process of trying to hold onto hope after disappointment keeps arriving anyway. Future Islands write songs that let you dance while wrecking you emotionally at the same time.

There are songs that become so associated with a moment or an era that they risk turning into artifacts instead of living things, but Future Islands somehow avoids that trap. “Seasons” still feels immediate when they play it live. The crowd response was massive, obviously, but not in a cynical “here’s the hit” way. More like collective gratitude.

Sam remains one of the great frontmen in modern music because he refuses emotional safety. He commits fully every single time. There are moments during a Future Islands set where he appears completely emptied out by the songs. Sweating through every movement. Collapsing to his knees. Clutching the microphone like he is hanging onto something physical and fragile at the same time.

Watching the crowd at Cat’s Cradle was almost as interesting as watching the band. There were people who clearly discovered them from the Letterman performance years ago. There were older local fans who probably saw them in tiny rooms long before that. There were younger fans singing every word to songs released before they were even in high school. Couples dancing. Friends screaming lyrics at each other.

The best shows do something strange to time. They collapse years together. Standing in Cat’s Cradle watching Future Islands after first seeing them at Hopscotch in 2013, after hearing Jeremy tell stories about Berkeley Cafe, after finally catching Jenny Besetzt for the first time after years of recommendations, it all started feeling connected somehow. Different versions of North Carolina music culture layered on top of each other inside one crowded room. You walk into that room carrying memories from almost fifteen years ago and leave with new ones that immediately attach themselves to the old ones.

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DREW DRAIN

Andrew (Drew) Drain is originally from Point Pleasant, WV, and he now resides in Chapel Hill, NC with his daughter. Drew works as a financial risk management professional to pay the bills, but his real passion is photography. He started taking photos of his daughter playing soccer as a way to resist the urge to coach her from the sidelines. Time behind the camera developed into a love for photography that he has paired with his love for sports and live music. Follow Drew’s Instagram, @Drew.Drain.Photo or his MaxPreps galleries, to check out more of his work or contact him if you need photos of your favorite athlete or performer.

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