Win Tickets ($60): Fruit Bats Night 1 @ Aladdin Theater | Indie Rock
We are giving away a pair of tickets to Fruit Bats on May 15. To win, comment below on this post why you’d like to attend. Winner will be drawn and emailed May 6.
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From our sponsors:
The Fruit Bats
May 15, 2024
Doors 7PM, Show 8PM | $30 | All Ages
More info: etix.com
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave, Portland, OR 97202
Eric D. Johnson rarely lingers at one location too long.
“There’s always been motion in my life between one place and another,” says the Fruit Bats songwriter. As a kid growing up in the Midwest, Johnson’s family moved around a lot, but it wasn’t until he became a touring musician years later that motion became a central part of his identity. That transient lifestyle stoked an enduring reverence for the world he watched pass by through a van window. “It weighs heavily on me—the notion of place,” Johnson says. “The places I’ve been and the places I want to go.”
A sense of place is a unifying theme he’s revisited with Fruit Bats throughout its many lives. From the project’s origins in the late ’90s as a vehicle for Johnson’s lo-fi tinkering to the more sonically ambitious work of recent years, Fruit Bats has often showcased love songs where people and locations meld into one. It’s a loose song structure that navigates what he calls “the geography of the heart.”
“The songs exist in a world that you can sort of travel from one to another,” says Johnson. “There are roads and rivers between these songs.”
Those pathways extend straight through the newest Fruit Bats album, aptly titled A River Running to Your Heart. Self-produced by Johnson—a first for Fruit Bats—with Jeremy Harris at Panoramic House just north of San Francisco, it’s Fruit Bats’ tenth full-length release. The album finds the project in the middle of a people-powered climb leading to the biggest shows, loudest accolades, and most enthusiastic new fans in Fruit Bats history! It’s hard to pinpoint a single reason for this mid-career resurgence. But after two decades of making music, hard-earned emotional maturity has clearly seeped into Johnson’s already inviting songs, resulting in a sound that’s connected with audiences like no other previous version of the band.
A River Running to Your Heart represents the fullest realization of Johnson’s creative vision to date. It’s a sonically diverse effort that largely explores the importance of what it means to be home, both physically and spiritually. And while that might seem like a peculiar focus for an artist who’s constantly in motion, for Fruit Bats, home can take many forms—from the obvious to the obscure.
Lead single “Rushin’ River Valley” is a self-propelled love song written about Johnson’s wife that clings to the borrowed imagery of the place where she grew up in northern California. Then, there’s the gentle and unfussy acoustic ballad “We Used to Live Here,” which looks back to a time of youthful promise and cheap rent. But the wistful “It All Comes Back” is perhaps the most stunning and surprising track on the album, Johnson’s production skills on full display. Built upon intricate layers of synths, keyboards, and guitars, it’s a pitch-perfect blend of tone and lyricism that taps into our shared apprehensions and hopes for a post-pandemic life.
“We lost some time / But we can make it back / Let’s take it easy on ourselves, okay?” sings a world-weary but ultimately reassuring Johnson in the song’s opening lines. It’s the kind of performance that makes you hope Fruit Bats stays in this one place, at least for a little while longer.
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Would love to dance and live in the joy of the Fruit Bats!!
Seeing this made me put there music on. It’s just as good as I remember. This should be a very fun show!
Ah, I miss listening to the Fruit Bats. 🙏
Fruit Bats is an American indie rock band formed in 1997 in Chicago, Illinois, as the project of singer/songwriter Eric D. Johnson. Johnson is the band’s sole permanent member, with various musicians joining the band in live and studio settings!
I love Chi-Town…that’s my hometown. LFG!
Ticket me bb!
I would so love to be able to see them live and to take a friend for her birthday!
I remember going to their “last show” together at the Aladdin years ago and it was epic. I would love to go dance it up with them again!
The Fruit Bats are my favorite! I would love to take my sweetie to see them!
Love this band and would be so excited to see them play!
Never seen them live and need to! Also, I’m broke.
Absolutely love this band! Can’t get enough!
Would love to see them!
Got tickets to the second night, seeing both sets would be magic!
I love fruit bats!!!
I heart Fruit Bats!! Would be a memorable experience to enjoy them live!
Fruit Bats! I have gotta take my sis to this!
Love Fruit Bats! Would be a great show with my new beau!
Time flies like an arrow fruit flies like bananas. 🍌
If I win these tickets, my partner and I will hold hands singing “joy to the world”.
Yes, over dcfc/postal srvc rehash
I mean, fruit bars forever duh.
Honestly my fav band!!!
Haven’t had a chance to see them live but I would love to! I’ve been a fan for 10+ years.
Crossing my fingers
This brings back so many high school memories! Would love to see them live for the first time!
Would love to go to this! 🤞🏻
let me hear that banjo en vivo!!
I’ve seen them live for over 15 years! Love them so much.
Mmmm love me some fruit bats.
Indie, soothe my soul!
Hearing Eric break into a falsetto for ‘Born in the 70’s’ would be a dream and it’s two days after my 50th birthday – because I was also born in the 70s 😉
This would be such a fun and silly event to experience! I’d be happy to go!
Would love to go for my bday!
I would so love to be able to see them live 😍
Fruit Bats would love to see em!!!
I have loved the fruit bats since I was in highschool driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Appalachian Mountains. I would love to take my partner to see them for his birthday!
I’ve loved Fruit Bats for 10+ years and I’ve never had a chance to see them live!
I’ve loved the Fruit Bats for years; they were a staple on my college mix CDs that I’d give out to friends and crushes. I’ve never been lucky enough to see them play, but I would love to!!
Oooooh!