There aren’t many bands that garner millions of streams before releasing an album — but the Florida-born indie rock band flipturn has done just that. Flipturn released their debut album “Shadowglow” just over a month ago and have been selling out venues up and down the coast of California and throughout the rest of the country ever since. Landing here in San Luis Obispo on Saturday, flipturn brought energy and pure happiness to SLO Brew Live.
The Brooklyn-based band Juice opened with a memorable 45-minute performance. The band’s genre is difficult to label as just one thing — the six-piece band seamlessly blends rhythm and blues, surf-rock, indie pop and hip-hop to create a unique sound. Not only is their style unique, but their instruments are too: band member Christian Rougeau shredded on the violin for much of the performance.
Later in the evening, flipturn’s lead singer Dillon Basse showcased vocals that had an almost angelic resonance, while the four other members — Tristan Duncan (guitar), Madeline Jarman (bass), Taylor Allen (synth) and Adrian Walker (drums) — danced alongside him and conversed with the crowd between songs.
Flipturn had an unparalleled stage presence, as the band seemed to feed off of the crowd’s energy, and vice versa. Walker even carried a drum into the crowd and had audience members hold it as he played standing on the crowd barrier.
Flipturn played most songs from their 14-song debut record, but also threw in some fan favorites such as “Chicago” and “Vanilla” from the 2017 EP “Heavy Colors” and, of course, “Hippies,” “Nickel” and “August” from the 2018 EP “Citrona.”
Flipturn will continue their Shadowglow Tour through the rest of the year with support from Juice, The Brazen Youth and Early Eyes. Their next stop is Madame Lou’s in Seattle on Wednesday.
