{"id":472496,"date":"2026-10-21T09:10:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/472496\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T09:10:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:10:39","slug":"review-foster-the-people-take-on-suburbia-in-iriving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/472496\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Foster the People take on suburbia in Iriving"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFoster the people confronted the crowd at the intersection of art and commodification on the Good Mourning Sunshine Tour. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Andrew Sherman for Dallas Observer<\/p>\n

Mark Foster has always sold poison in a candy wrapper. Since \u201cPumped Up Kicks\u201d first whistled its way onto the radio in 2011<\/a>, his band has delivered dark news over sunny melodies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Sunday night at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving<\/a>, the Good Mourning Sunshine Tour made that strategy unmistakably visible. The stage held a tidy suburban home, and by the end of the night, it was on fire.<\/p>\n

\"\"The \u201cPumped Up Kicks\u201d group quite literally burned down the house. <\/p>\n

Andrew Sherman for Dallas Observer<\/p>\n

Sunshine on shuffle<\/p>\n

Goth Babe opened at 8 p.m. to a venue roughly 40 percent full. The project, which is speared by Tennessee musician Griff Washburn, sounds like the same era that produced Foster the People \u2014 picture a \u201cTwilight\u201d soundtrack cut sitting next to a Washed Out deep track. That\u2019s a compliment \u2014 those soundtracks were the best part of the films.<\/p>\n

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THANK YOU!<\/p>\n

You’re all set.<\/p>\n

CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Washburn greeted the room with an easy \u201cHappy Sunday, y\u2019all,\u201d and wasted no time turning an amphitheater into a neighborhood hang. He was joined by Austin natives James Bookert of San Gabriel on guitar and Eduardo \u201cEddie\u201d Torres on drums. Songs like \u201cMoments\/Tides\u201d and \u201cSometimes\u201d drew the most head-bobbing. \u201cEncinitas\u201d \u2014 played for a crowd-splitting competition \u2014 and \u201cWeekend Friend\u201d closed things out warmly.<\/p>\n

The trio made the room feel full by sheer force of personality. Washburn introduced his bandmates and flagged their Texas roots, then introduced the plants on the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got them at Michael\u2019s,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re part of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then split the crowd into Team James and Team Eddie, judging each side\u2019s energy during \u201cEncinitas.\u201d The winners received a signed Hamilton Beach two-slice toaster launched into the pit. The losers: a signed banana. He also spotted a birthday in the crowd \u2014 \u201cYou promise it\u2019s your birthday?\u201d \u2014 and dedicated \u201cCasita\u201d to a Lucy on the spot with a bouquet of flowers.<\/p>\n

The charm was real. The challenge was structural. Much of the set\u2019s thump came from backing tracks, and in an 8,000-capacity amphitheater, that gap grows. The sound was album-perfect \u2014 almost too perfect. A keyboard player building those beats onstage would close the distance. Washburn\u2019s between-song banter confirmed the vocals were live, and as a warm-up act, it worked.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the neighborhood<\/p>\n

At 9:15 p.m., with the crowd near 80 percent capacity, Foster stepped out of the front door of a golden-lit suburban home like a sitcom dad walking into a fever dream. Then, the vintage billboards appeared.<\/p>\n

A pregnant woman on screen puffed Redhaven Cigarettes: \u201cI\u2019m smoking for two!\u201d Elsewhere, a \u201cSuck-o-Matic!\u201d vacuum ad promised domestic bliss. There was a sign for an inflatable husband. Another showed a father and son holding guns above the words \u201cStart \u2018em young.\u201d This is the band\u2019s thesis in poster form: the American Dream has always been a sales pitch, and it has always had a price.<\/p>\n

\"\"The larger-than-life billboard set design from the show on doesn\u2019t feel like much of an exaggeration to reality. <\/p>\n

Andrew Sherman for Dallas Observer<\/p>\n

The venue shifted with each song. During \u201cWaste,\u201d it was engulfed in flames beneath a sign reading \u201cLeave No One Behind.\u201d Even the live feed was art-directed as the band appeared as glowing white outlines, then in underwater and alien-like filters. A camera dropped from the rafters on a wire. It looked, briefly, like Foster might sail over the crowd in the style of a Pink show. Instead, he sang directly into the lens for an intimate close-up, then walked back to a second camera mounted on the front door to do it again.<\/p>\n

Critics have spent years waiting for Foster the People to recapture the momentum of their debut record, \u201cTorches.\u201d They miss the point. Plenty of bands sand their sound down until nothing remains, but Foster kept swinging. 2014\u2019s \u201cSupermodel\u201d tackled materialism head-on. 2017\u2019s \u201cSacred Hearts Club\u201d chased psychedelia. \u201cLost in Space,\u201d one of two tracks performed from 2024\u2019s \u201cParadise State of Mind,\u201d pulls MGMT, Empire of the Sun and Electric Light Orchestra into the same orbit.<\/p>\n

\"\"Foster the People touring drummer Aaron Steele. <\/p>\n

Andrew Sherman for Dallas Observer<\/p>\n

Still, the set leaned smartly on \u201cTorches\u201d and \u201cSupermodel.\u201d Favorites like \u201cHelena Beat,\u201d \u201cHoudini\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Stop (Color on the Walls)\u201d kept the floor bouncing. \u201cComing of Age\u201d delivered its \u201cbored of the game and too tired to rage\u201d confession at stadium scale. <\/p>\n

For his part, Foster barely spoke \u2014 no \u201cWhat\u2019s up, Dallas,\u201d just a hand on his heart at the end. The performance did the talking, and its most eloquent moment came when Foster sat alone onstage with an acoustic guitar for \u201cGoats in Trees,\u201d climbing into a fragile falsetto before dropping to a startling low. The nearly 8,000 seats in the venue suddenly felt like a living room.<\/p>\n

\"\"The LA indie-pop band\u2019s latest record, \u201cParadise State of Mind,\u201d was released in 2024.<\/p>\n

Andrew Sherman for Dallas Observer<\/p>\n

The two-song encore opened with \u201cSit Next to Me\u201d and closed with \u201cPumped Up Kicks.\u201d Foster has wrestled publicly with retiring that closing song<\/a> \u2014 a warning written from the perspective of a troubled, violent mind that became inextricably linked to mass shootings in America. Now it\u2019s a wound for many. In Irving, the crowd flailed in pure joy, lost entirely in the bassline.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the paradox Foster the People have built a career on. The meaning sits in plain sight, and the groove makes it easy to look away. The house burned all night. We danced in the glow until 10:45 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Foster the people confronted the crowd at the intersection of art and commodification on the Good Mourning Sunshine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2171,102,104,103,4661,3503,2174],"class_list":["post-472496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-concert-reviews","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-pop-music","tag-rock-music","tag-touring-artists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}