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Urban Heat: North American Headlining Tour

Loira

Photo Credit: Jonathan Horstmann

Winter blues getting you down? Cold seeping into your bones? Well, I’ve got some great news for you: Urban Heat’s keeping it hot with a four week North American headlining tour to warm the colder months! And warm them they will – I saw them in Vancouver back in August, playing at a neat outdoor venue called Green Auto Body. Outdoor venue, nighttime show… I got it in my head it would be cooler than their indoor set back in April. There’d be a breeze, right? The sun setting would cool things off? Yes, correct! Was I still scrambling to get my hair off the back of my neck halfway through their set because it was ridiculously hot? Sure was!

If you’ve read my first piece about the group you already know Urban Heat is the only reason I was in Vancouver. Was I already out West during that time? Yeah, but not in Vancouver and with no intention of going there. And then, whoops, they were joining Vision Video on tour and twenty minutes later I had a plane ticket with the problem of “where am I staying?” left for a not 2am version of me.  

Not familiar with Urban Heat? Let me bring you up to speed real quick: they’re a post-punk synthpop band from Austin, Texas, fusing dark 80s stylings with modern flourishes. Formed in 2019 when Jonathan Horstman reached out to Kevin Naquin and Paxel Foley to form a live show around his analog sound design, Urban Heat has since taken “America’s goth underground in such a blitz that it feels like it suddenly arose from the ether.” (SPIN)

Their breakout single “Have You Ever?” went viral on TikTok in 2022, later winning Song of the Year from the Austin Music Awards. They’ve played Austin City Limits and Cruel World, were official artists for SXSW, and have toured both coasts alongside Vision Video with multiple sold out shows. This past September they were named Best Band in Best of ATX, and just announced that they’ve signed with Toronto based Artoffact Records.

Somewhere between all this they’ve also played at Artists for the Betterment of Kids at the Border, and released (gorgeous) music videos for “Goodbye Horses,” “Have You Ever? (Piano Version),” and “Like This” – the first single off their upcoming album, The Tower, which is set to release in Summer 2024. 

All caught up? Great! Back to Vancouver.

I was there because Urban Heat was playing, and couldn’t keep the smile off my face once they started. The opening notes of “Trust” rang out and I just felt elation. You’re here, I thought, you’re in Vancouver, you made it to the show, you’re really here and seeing them again! I couldn’t help but laugh a few times during the set, my joy was just so complete. 

My heart soared and ached as they moved through the setlist. You’re brought through the highs and lows and come out the other side refreshed, renewed, and wishing they’d play just one more song. The energy of their show, and frontman Jonathan Horstmann, is unparalleled. It’s a rare few seconds that he’s standing in one place, moving between Kevin and Pax throughout, always returning to ground himself at centre stage before taking off again. It’s hard not to want to match that energy! 

I was curious if seeing them a second time would leave as big an impression as it had when I first saw them back in April. I was so out of words after that show that all I managed to get out at the merch table was “you’re my favourite band,” and ask for a photo. (You can read more about my first time seeing them – and about “Like This,” including some commentary from Horstmann, here).

Conclusion: it did! It’s a special kind of alive you feel when experiencing live music and being there, being part of the energy exchange between the crowd and band; being part of and taking part of that together, is exhilarating. 

I’ve said before that their music meets you where you’re at, and if anything this show solidified that belief for me. April saw me at my lowest point in quite some time, the culmination of various factors topped off by the particular flavour of grief from having just had my first birthday since my dad’s death. Fast forward four months and people I’ve known most of my life were telling me they don’t think they’ve ever seen me happier. 

I’m not saying that’s because of Urban Heat – it isn’t – but their music did play a role in turning a key of a door I couldn’t even see, and while it was painful and difficult to walk through, I’m so grateful I did. I recognize myself for the first time in a very long time. That’s everything.

At Vancouver’s show I danced, I sang – I got out of my head enough to really be there and experience it all. I ducked my chin and just grinned when “A Simple Love Song” started – I’ve got my own little set of dance moves for that one, determined over many a morning, afternoon, and evening of shimmying around the living room.

This time around, “A Simple Love Song” also struck differently. I was in Vancouver for two days and was then meant to be heading to Kelowna to meet up with dear friends – that was why I was out West. 

But earlier in the day Kelowna’s airspace closed, and a state of emergency was declared due to the wildfires. Just before Urban Heat’s set started I received a photo from a friend showing hills backlit by fire, the sky a sea of black smoke. My heart sank. “And we saw the reflection of the burning hillside in each other’s eyes,” became an even more sobering line in a song that is, on the whole, pretty damn serious while also being infectiously fun. I wound up in Seattle for a week, my bus trip down next to a university student who’d evacuated Kelowna and had spent the last few nights in shelters. 

(I do want to touch for a moment on the fact that the first time I saw this band, my city experienced an extreme weather event that left the majority of the population without power for 4+ days, and the second time fires were raging dangerously out of control, and devastating entire communities in the same province they were playing in. It seems a bit on the nose for a band whose name is directly tied to climate change. I am looking at December warily, and if this is the first you’re hearing of the Urban Heat Island Effect (the original iteration of the band’s name but not their first name) go ahead and give that a quick search.) 

What struck me just as much as their show was the connections I made with people as a direct result from it. If you’re new here, I’m super into tabletop roleplaying games and that’s usually what I write about. If you aren’t new here, you know – you know my usual content! So meeting Janessa, a member of The Call – A Call of Cthulhu Play Cast by Twisted Gear Studios, who was in from Alberta, was really damn cool. 

And she wasn’t the only one! While out with a friend the following day, someone came up to me in a shop – spotting my Urban Heat shirt – and asked if I’d been at the show the night before. They and their girlfriend had both been there and we had a fantastic conversation about how, yes, we had all been at that show because of Urban Heat. They started playing “Have You Ever?” on the store’s soundsystem and the memory still brings me a smile months later.

Fast-forward to September and seeing Fotocrime and wouldn’t you know the guy working the door sees my Urban Heart shirt and goes “oh I like those guys, I worked their show back in April!” which led to a brief conversation about how great they are, and a “see you in December if you’re working their next show!” moment.

Connection. That’s what it is all about, right? Not just us as creatives creating, not just the music resonating with us on an individual level, but how that brings us together and gives people who are otherwise strangers something to share – share the experience of, and excitement in. It’s special. 

Urban Heat’s 23 show run kicked off Nov. 15 in Denton, Tx., and sees them playing across the Midwest, Canada, and the East Coast. They’ll also be playing Darker Waves alongside genre giants Tears for Fears and New Order on Nov. 18 in Huntington Beach, Ca. Tickets are currently available for all dates through the band’s website. And hey, if you’re going to the Philadelphia, New Jersey or New York shows, maybe we’ll dance together there – say hi if you see me, I’d love to chat!

Want to keep up with Urban Heat? Check them out on TikTok, Instagram, and be sure to sign up for their mailing list! 

That’s all from me this week, stay cozy!

Tour Dates

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