State Theatre & 98.9 WCLZ present

Guster On The Ocean (Night 2)

with Toad the Wet Sprocket, Kevin Morby, Trousdale

Sat, August 10, 2024

Thompson's Point

Doors: 3:00pm - Show: 3:30pm - all ages

Prices in description

All Thompson’s Point shows are rain or shine. Buy tickets in person (without fees) at the State Theatre box office Fridays 10am-5pm, or the night of any State Theatre show. The Thompson’s Point Box Office opens 2 hours before doors day of show. Please note that ticket prices may fluctuate based on demand. On-site parking is very limited, buy in advance above. CLICK HERE for more transportation info.


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Guster

EARLY BIRD PRICING (April 5 at Noon – Wed, April 17 at noon)

Friday Single Day Adult – $45.00
Friday Single Day Kids – $20.00
Sat/Sun Adult GA – $110.00
Sat/Sun Adult VIP – $250.00
Sat/Sun Kids GA – $30.00
Fri/Sat/Sun Adult GA – $150.00
Fri/Sat/Sun Adult VIP – $290.00
Fri/Sat/Sun Kids GA – $50.00

REGULAR PRICING (starts at Wed, April 17 at noon)

Friday Single Day Adult – $50.00
Sat/Sun Adult GA – $120.00
Sat/Sun Adult VIP – $275.00
Sat/Sun Kids GA – $30.00
Fri/Sat/Sun Adult GA – $160.00
Fri/Sat/Sun Adult VIP – $320.00
Fri/Sat/Sun Kids GA – $50.00

ADULT SINGLE DAY SAT & SUN TICKETS (on-sale Wed, May 8 at noon):

Sat Adult Single GA – $65
Sun Adult Single GA – $65
Sat Single Day Kids – $20.00
Sun Single Day Kids – $20.00

VIP INCLUDES
• Tickets to each TP show with access to an VIP exclusive concert viewing area
• Fast Pass Access line to get into the show
• VIP Concierge Service with festival essentials like phone charging, sunscreen, snacks, samples and more
• Private restrooms in VIP
• Exclusive access to VIP Food Trucks
• Private VIP Bar Access
• Exclusive Guster VIP merch item

PLEASE NOTE: Kids do NOT need a VIP ticket. Kids are welcome in VIP if a parent has a VIP ticket.

Learn more at: www.ontheoceanfest.com


Look Alive is our 8th album. The bulk of it was recorded in a vintage keyboard museum in Calgary AB, during a January stretch when the temperature reached 30 degrees below zero. We ended up in Canada because our British producer, Leo Abrahams, couldn’t turn around an American work visa fast enough, and we feel lucky to have discovered Studio Bell at the last minute. Despite having access to room after room of well-maintained analog keys, Leo gravitated to a cheap Ensoniq Mirage synth from the 1980’s that made Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation-era sounds from floppy disks. Leo spent countless hours poring over these floppy disks while the band gawked at the mellotrons, harpsichords, and other vintage equipment housed at Studio Bell. It was the beginnings of a stylistic clash that would ultimately play out beautifully. Our band had always gravitated to “warm” sounds. Leo would introduce us to “cold” sounds and the way they challenge us as listeners. He was the perfect complementary piece for Guster.

After working with the late Richard Swift four years ago and discovering a more raw and vintage sound on Evermotion, we fully embraced studio production with Leo this time around. The sheer amount of production on Look Alive grew into its own statement. There is a lot to unpack.

One day in Calgary we arrived at the studio to discover that Leo had put in a few extra hours on our song “Summertime.” He’d built an entire new intro using the Ensoniq Mirage overnight and played it for us. The band reaction wasn’t too kind. Our beautiful song now had a jarring, harsh, disruptive introduction, instead of the soft mellotron flutes we’d known. After some days of light bickering about it, Leo finally shed his proper British diplomatic side and belted out that “the world doesn’t need another fucking Beatles pastiche!” This would eventually become a rallying cry for the album as we strove to make something new and powerful together.

Title track “Look Alive” is an ominous, processed sonic collage with haunting words about waking up and becoming active in the midst of hollow words and fake heroes. “Hard Times,” written in the studio, came out more like the dark pop of Peter Gabriel / Depeche Mode / Tears for Fears than what people might think of Guster. “Overexcited” felt like classic Brit-pop and so Ryan sang it with a British accent over an Ensoniq marimba. Some of Guster’s critics will say “but you can’t do that” — and that’s something we’ve heard our entire career. We don’t subscribe to the same musical ideology they do and never have.

Writing songs for the second straight record with multi-instrumentalist Luke Reynolds (who joined the band in 2010) has been a key to our evolution. Working with artists like Leo Abrahams, John Congleton, and Collin DuPuis proved to be inspiring and adds to a “brain trust” that bolsters the songs. With Look Alive the plan is simple. Grow our musical community. Write better and better songs. Keep our minds open. Never repeat ourselves and create a legacy of music that is undeniable.

– Brian Rosenworcel, drummer of Guster

Toad the Wet Sprocket

Toad the Wet Sprocket is still making new music and touring with the same spirit of unwavering independence that started it all over three decades ago.

The band is thankful for the continued help and enthusiastic support of their fans, which helped spur the release of All You Want and also serves as inspiration for the band to not only tour and play live, but to continue to make new original music together. They continue to support their most recent release, Starting Now (2021), as well as their previous album New Constellation (2013), and EP The Architect of Ruin (2015). Toad the Wet Sprocket share in the kind of musical chemistry that can only come from meeting in high school and writing, recording, and touring on albums over the course of time. After Bread & Circus, they followed with Pale in 1990, fear in ’91, Dulcinea in 1994, and Coil in 1997, as well as some compilations along the way. While most will still feel the comforting familiarity of the Billboard-charting hits, “Walk on the Ocean”, “All I Want”, “Something’s Always Wrong”, and “Fall Down”, fans will also be well familiar with tracks with lyrics that resonate for so many life milestones like “The Moment”, “I Will Not Take These Things for Granted”, “Transient Whales” and so many more.

Kevin Morby

The story begins with Kevin Morby absentmindedly flipping through a box of old family photos in the basement of his childhood home in Kansas City. Just hours before, at a family dinner, his father had collapsed in front of him and had to be rushed to the hospital. That night Morby still felt the shock and fear lodged in his bones. So he gazed at the images until one of the pictures jumped out at him: his father as a young man, proud and strong and filled with confidence, posing on a lawn with his shirt off.

This was in January of 2020. As the months went on and the world dramatically changed around him, Morby felt an eerie similarity between his feelings of that night and the atmosphere of those spring days. Fear, anxiety, hope and resilience all churning together. The themes began twisting in his mind. History, trauma and the grand fight against time. Having the courage to dream, even while knowing the tragedy that often awaits those who dare to dream.

While his father regained his strength, Morby meditated on these ideas. And then, he headed to Memphis. He moved into the Peabody Hotel and spent his days paying tribute and genuflecting to the dreamers he admired. In the evening, he would return to his room and document his ideas on a makeshift recording set-up, with just his guitar and a microphone. The songs, elegiac in nature, befitting all he had seen, poured out of him.

Produced by Sam Cohen (who also worked on Morby’s Singing Saw and Oh My God), This Is A Photograph features musical contributions from longtime staples of Morby’s live band, as well as old friends and new collaborators alike. If Oh My God saw Morby getting celestial and in constant motion and Sundowner was a study in localized intent, This Is A Photograph finds Morby making an Americana paean, a visceral life and death, blood on the canvas outpouring. As Morby reminds us early on, time is undefeated. So what do we do while we’re still here? This is a photograph of that sense of yearning.

Kevin Morby

Leading up to the release of his new album Sundowner, out Oct 16th on Dead Oceans, Kevin Morby has announced a series of virtual shows. The solo performances will feature each album from his catalogue in their entirety, Thursday nights at 9pm ET from Sept 10-Oct 15th.

9/10 – Harlem River
9/17 – Still Life
9/24 – Singing Saw
10/1 – City Music
10/8 – Oh My God
10/16 – Sundowner (full band) (rescheduled from 10/15)

Merch bundle prices:
SUNDOWNER + Release Show: $35
SUNDOWNER + 6-show Bundle: $80
SUNDOWNER + 6-show Bundle + VIP Meet and Greet: $130

Live-stream-only prices:
Individual show: $15.00
6-show Bundle: $60.00
VIP M&G: $110.00

Trousdale

Trousdale is a powerful female band consisting of Quinn D’Andrea, Georgia Greene, and Lauren Jones. Their melodic and heartfelt harmonies are often compared to The Chicks and The Staves, but the girls draw inspiration from a wide array of music, including Crosby Stills and Nash, Kacey Musgraves and HAIM. Driven by their passion to empower young women, Trousdale is committed to making quality music that spreads a message of self-acceptance and love.