Fruit Bats Take Flight At Union Transfer

It’s been 25 years since Echolocation, the first record under Eric D. Johnson’s “Fruit Bats” moniker, was released. While most of his contemporaries have marked such an occasion with nostalgic anniversary tours, Johnson’s relationship with time and the music industry has been a bit different.

Johnson views the life of Fruit Bats in distinct eras, such as the time before 2009’s The Ruminant Band, when things were pretty rough-and-tumble, as many of his friends could buy houses off their record sales and needle drops; or after 2016’s Absolute Loser, when the lead single “Humbug Mountain Song” became his most popular song to date. The success of his supergroup side project Bonny Light Horseman hasn’t hurt either; he earned two Grammy nominations for their debut LP. He recently spoke to World Cafe‘s Stephen Kallao about his latest record, The Landfill, which marks a quarter-century of the band with a reflection on “climbing a mountain of failures and the perspective that comes from reaching the top.”

As a result of this rather unique trajectory, Fruit Bats has been a project with over a dozen releases, each one hitting with its own unique fan base. It makes for a wonderfully diverse—and remarkably youthful—audience that’s along for the ride regardless of which songs they came there for. Such was the case at Union Transfer on Thursday, where Johnson and his top-notch five-piece filled the main floor and ran down a jubilant, catalog-spanning set in which each song seemed to be the favorite or at least part of the room.

While Johnson spoke early on about some issues with his voice, he didn’t show many signs of strain throughout the evening. (He did take a moment after “The Bottom of It” to re-sing the highest line in the song, much to the crowd’s chagrin.) His band is unquestionably tight, most notably Josh Mease’s delightfully precise guitar solo on “A Lingering Love” off of Gold Past Life. Harmonies from bassist David Dawda kept a tight pace with Johnson at every step throughout the night.

For those of us who have made the long haul with the band, some of their deeper cuts had a moment to shine, too: a vibey take on “Rainbow Sign,” the opener from 2004’s Mouthfuls, and a soaring “Shivering Fawn” from 2011’s Tripper.

Towards the end of the set, Johnson put his guitar down and stepped out of the lights with microphone in hand to croon out the waltzy “Flamingo,” reminding everyone over and over “everything’s gonna be just fine.” It was a fitting sentiment to reflect on the evening, as well as the last 25 years.