There was a time when the members of Hippo Campus may not have felt particularly comfortable in front of a crowd. Guitarist Nathan Stocker’s pre-show routine once consisted of chain smoking and drinking—an undoubtedly unhealthy means of shaking off nerves. But the 30-year-old is completely sober now, and for the most part, so are the rest of his band members. They’re all older, wiser, and thinking deeply about the big questions in life. They look right at home atop The Anthem’s stage, dynamic and pensive all at the same time.
But first, a brief commentary on opener Petey USA.
Oh, Petey. We repeated this phrase constantly as we watched on unmovingly, eyes wide open in bewilderment at the train wreck of an opener, a show by an alternative/indie rock musician blandly named Petey USA. Like his name, his stage presence was, at its core, underwhelming. He sported a yellow flannel and long hair that seemed to not have been washed in days. At best, we can call his stage presence entertaining––his capability to act like a pogo stick was probably the most impressive part of his performance. He supplemented this by repeatedly howling at the sky like a wolf.
In the manner of a petulant child, Petey screamed many obscenities at the crowd as he sang lyrics about being the first man ever to experience any emotion. His shrill voice ripped through the Anthem’s chaotic strobe lights as millennial men bobbed their heads in unison.
While his Spotify confirms that he has at least 300,000 monthly listeners, and his most popular song, “Don’t Tell the Boys,” boasts almost nine million streams, one might still be surprised to see him given the chance to perform in front of a packed Anthem crowd. The song describes what I thought was an experience for teenagers and not grown men, as he complained about not being able to tell his homies about the affection he feels for his significant other––a motif that is mixed in with adlibs about ending the capitalist mode of production. Having said this, I will refer to his screaming question of whether it was possible to “support the individual / Without the whole damn complex.” You might not get what relevance this has to the rest of the song, and to be fair, I think Petey has no idea, either.
Hippo Campus, on the contrary, proved to be a treat, curating a setlist that bundles an earnest sense of maturity with unrelenting excitement. The high school friends from Minnesota initially appear unassuming. Lead singer Jake Luppen casually sports a pair of oversized square sunglasses, but the rest of the band simply wears t-shirts and flannels. But rather than appearing underdressed (or like a cheap cosplay of The Dare), they seem unpretentious—at their core, they’re just like you and me.
The band opened their set with a three-song run from their 2024 album Flood, the stage perspicuously illuminated by an accordingly warm yellow glow. Where Petey lacked emotional intelligence, Hippo Campus meditates on anxiety with dazzling poise in “Paranoid” (”Is there something waiting out there for us at the finish line? / Can I have a second just to recollect my mind?”) and casts out fear and twisted dreams in “Tooth Fairy.” But even as their personal lives and music grow and change, they refuse to let go of the classics that made them famous, including “baseball,” “Buttercup,” and “South” amongst less familiar but equally luminous album cuts. Across each medium, Hippo Campus demonstrates an immense array of musical prowess, incorporating wailing saxophone solos into the bridge of each song.
Hippo Campus ultimately leaves its fans on their toes, teasing the upcoming rock single “Easy.” Even with a long career behind them, they’re continuing to grow and develop into the best version of their sound as they go.
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