La Dispute bring all the emotions for an intimate evening in Milwaukee (Show Review)

By Bryan McCabe

I have been waiting for years to see La Dispute. They seem to rarely come close to me, so I’m always keeping an eye on their tour dates. I’d be lying if I said that this was going to be my first time seeing them. I actually saw them back in 2009 opening for Thursday. Unfortunately, I had no idea who they were back then. I just remember thinking, “wow, this guy just yells a lot”. I just didn’t get it at that time. Since then, their music eventually clicked with me and I’ve developed a solid appreciation for La Dispute. Luckily for me, they finally came to Milwaukee on an anniversary tour of their much loved album “Wildlife”. Yes, It’s technically an 11 year anniversary tour, but that’s just a result of the circumstances of the world that we live in. I was finally going to get to see them as a true fan this time. 

The Back Room in Milwaukee is quite literally the back end of a coffee shop that gets reconfigured into a venue when it’s time to enjoy some music. Plan to get to the show a little early, because I got there right at show time, yet opener Pictoria Vark was almost done. I only caught about a song and a half, but what I heard was some cool heartfelt indie music. 

After a quick changeover Philadelphia’s Sweet Pill took the stage. From start to finish vocalist Zayna Youssef commanded the stage with her energetic dance moves and powerful vocals. They were able to go from hard driving hardcore breakdowns and then reel the energy right back into soft nearly whispered emo. The crowd was loving that energy and was showing Sweet Pill a lot of love. 

After yet another quick changeover, the disjointed guitar riff of “a Departure” started to play as La Dispute took the stage. I don’t think there was an inch of the stage that vocalist Jordan Dreyer didn’t touch. He was jumping all over the place the entire night, yet he was perfectly belting out his lyrics with all of the passion that they deserve. Being an anniversary tour, they played “Wildlife” front to back. 

The crowd sang nearly every word with just as much passion as Jordan. It’s clearly obvious how much his lyrics touch so many fans, and that can be felt live. It was definitely a highlight hearing the sold out crowd belt out the words to “King Park” The band sounded perfect, but the passion in the words comes across so much more powerful live. After leaving the stage after the conclusion of “Wildlife”, the band came back out and surprised the crowd with the rarely played “Andria”. The energy of the crowd peaked at this point, even though they had already been screaming at the top of their lungs all night. 

Hopefully the energy and passion put on display by the crowd in Milwaukee encourages La Dispute to come around more often, because this city clearly loves them.