Hippo Campus at Public Arts

Jake Luppen

The members of Hippo Campus met as students in a performing arts high school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Vocalist/guitarist Jake Luppen and bassist Zach Sutton played in a band called Blatant Youth and guitarist/vocalist Nathan Stocker and drummer Whistler Allen were in a band called Northern, and the two bands sometimes played shows together. The two guitarists started jamming together secretly during senior year and ultimately formed a new indie rock band that would be called Hippo Campus in 2013. Trumpet player DeCarlo Jackson, who attended school with the other members, performs on the band's live dates. Hippo Campus released its second full-length album, Bambi, on August 23, 2018.

Hippo Campus headlined Public Arts tonight with a set of lively pop tunes that had more spring than a trampoline. Even a song with a morbid title, "Suicide Saturday," was packed with more rebound than a bounce house. The songs featured a full wall of sound, with carefully planted anthem-like crescendos designed for crowd sing-alongs. The arrangements also allowed for unexpected bridges and breaks, including several trumpet excursions and complex chord progressions. Below the overarching waves of happiness that flavored the entire set, these young musicians (all in their early 20s) crafted a conspicuous undercurrent of interesting vocals and intriguing musicianship that made the songs far more than Top 40 fodder. Hippo Campus is bound to be added to major festival lineups next summer.

Visit Hippo Campus at www.hippocampus.band.

Setlist:

1. Bambi
2. Honestly
3. Doubt
4. Why Even Try
5. Bubbles
6. Anxious
7. Golden
8. Passenger
9. Baseball
10. Way It Goes
11. South
12. Buttercup

Encore:

1. Violet