Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats: Forest Hills Stadium 2018

Like The Head and the Heart, WFUV has been on board with Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats since the release of their first single. So when Rita Houston and I co-hosted a live broadcast from the WFUV Clubhouse at Forest Hills Stadium with both bands, there was a lot of "FUV LUV" in the house, and fans shared their adoration with us all night.

Contributing to Rateliff & the Night Sweats' appeal is a heroic quality — in the sense that they've paid their dues, and the friendship and camaraderie between band members defines not only their relationships but the music they make. This is exemplified by the intimate bond between Rateliff and bassist Joseph Pope III. They go back over twenty years to when they were living in rural Missouri, before relocating to the band’s current home base of Denver, Colorado. Illustrating the connection last night, Rateliff raised a glass to his bandmate’s mother, “Mama Pope,” and gave her an onstage toast.

Rateliff has a manic energy that's matched by his aptly named band, and they play with power, finesse and a tightness that speaks to years of honing their craft in the studio and on the road. With punchy horns putting exclamation marks on anthems of tribulation and celebration, these guys know how to have a good time onstage and they definitely know how to get a crowd going! In fact, the crowd kept the refrain from "S.O.B." going well after the band left the stage, and it spontaneously reappeared well past the concession stands and the West Side Tennis Club courts as the crowd filed out.

However, that wasn’t until after the Head and the Heart took the stage again to join Rateliff and the band in an upbeat cover of Bruce Springsteen’s "Atlantic City" to cap a glorious night. To borrow an expletive from the group’s aforementioned signature song, "son of a b*tch", that was a fun show!

Listen to the band's set here.

Setlist

• Shoe Boot
• Be There
• Look It Here
• I Did It
• A Little Honey
• Cooling Out
• Out on the Weekend
• You Worry Me
• Wasting Time
• Babe I Know
• Intro
• I Need Never Get Old
• Hey Mama
• S.O.B.
• Trying So Hard Not to Know
  Encore:
• Atlantic City (with The Head and the Heart)

[recorded: 6/9/18]