Join The Current at night two of our 20th Anniversary Celebration! This event will feature music from Beach Bunny, Bad Bad Hats, MAKR AN ERIS at First Avenue. 

Saturday, January 25, 2025 | Ages: 18+

Doors: 6:30 p.m. | Performance: 7:30 p.m. 

TICKETS

*See presale and public on-sale dates and information below

MEMBER PRESALE: Wednesday, October 9 at 10 a.m. to Thursday, October 10 at 10 a.m. 

• MPR Members get first access to tickets for this show! Your presale will start on Wednesday, October 9, at 10 a.m. and run through Thursday, October 10 at 10 a.m.

  • Existing Members, keep an eye out for your presale code in the Member Essentials newsletter, which will hit inboxes the morning of Wednesday, October 9! 

  • If you aren’t a Member yet, join now, and you can get first access to tickets to The Current’s 20th Anniversary Celebration… you’ll get a confirmation email with pre-sale details.

• The first 200 tickets sold to this show will receive an $8.93 discount. 

CROSS CURRENTS PRESALE: Thursday, October 10 – 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. 

• Subscribers to The Current’s weekly newsletter, Cross Currents, will receive a presale code in the newsletter on Thursday, October 10. This presale will run from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. that day. 

PUBLIC ON-SALE: Friday, October 11 – 10 a.m. 

• Tickets go on sale to everyone Friday, October 11, at 10 a.m.

Beach Bunny

As lockdown approached in 2020, Chicago-based singer Lili Trifilio was wrapping up a tour in support of Beach Bunny’s debut album, Honeymoon. Suddenly, she found herself back at her parents’ house, coping with her new reality. To deal, she retreated into sci-fi stories and her always-active imagination. She envisioned new places to travel in her mind, thus dreaming up big, bombastic pop sounds to construct Beach Bunny’s highly anticipated sophomore album, Emotional Creature.

Simultaneously about personal growth, Emotional Creature is a collection of highly relatable songs that capture the highs and lows of new relationships, the joys and vulnerabilities of letting someone in, the gut-wrenching realities of experiencing anxiety, leaving toxic relationships, and seeing yourself through the eyes of the one you love. These complex feelings are expertly contrasted with ultra-poppy melodies, anthemic choruses, and a slight punk edge. “The songs have grown with me over time,” Trifilio explains. “Some of them were written in various stages of life, and I think as we go through different experiences and hardships, you come out stronger. I’ve grown as a person, so the songwriting reflects that.”

With its openhearted, vulnerable themes and progressive, hook-filled take on pop rock and pop punk, Emotional Creature only further cements Beach Bunny and Trifilio’s well-earned reputation as a leading voice of their generation.

Bad Bad Hats

The Minneapolis, Minnesota duo Bad Bad Hats are named after a little-known song from “Madeline,” a beloved children’s book series about a mischievous young girl and her yellow-clad classmates. Founded by singer/songwriter Kerry Alexander and guitarist Chris Hoge, the band traffics in similarly playful concepts and warm scenes of youth. Bad Bad Hats are celebrated for crispy, lived-in melodies, big choruses that stick for days, and an easy musicianship that carries across their eclectic, wide-ranging releases.

The band's lead singer Kerry Alexander grew up between Tampa, Florida and Birmingham, Alabama. As a child, she was a student of the glossy MTV pop that defined the early 2000s, as well as the David Bowie and Tom Petty CDs her parents would play while making dinner. Singer-songwriters like Alanis Morissette, Kim Deal, and later, Michelle Branch, were an early inspiration for Kerry: after discovering songwriting as a profession while watching American Idol, the young teenaged Kerry began filling binders with songs, planning to one day write hit records for stars.

As her confidence grew, Kerry began testing her performance chops at open mic nights, and eventually began sharing demos on Myspace, where she first connected with Chris Hoge, a savvy guitarist and classmate at the small liberal arts school Macalester College. The pair’s chemistry was undeniable, sharing common tastes in songwriting and sound, and they flourished creatively--and, soon, as a couple. They refined demos together and gigged around the Twin Cities, where they received consistently strong responses from friends who’d come to their shows. Soon, Kerry and Chris were assembling their first EP, It Hurts, and catching the ear of local indie labels. After fleshing out the line up with bassist Noah Boswell, Bad Bad Hats was officially born.

Psychic Reader, BBH’s debut LP, arrived in 2015. Led by the ebullient single “Midway,” the album highlighted the band’s cinematic sound, punchy rhythm sections, and Kerry’s heart-aching vocals. With Psychic Reader, the band expanded their audience beyond local Twin Cities venues, as their music spread organically via college radio and shared links. New fans seemed to discover the music daily, their growth coincided with a renaissance in young bedroom musicians via streaming through the 2010s. With their follow-up full-length albums Lightning Round (2018) and Walkman (2021), Bad Bad Hats expanded their sound and look, with hilariously DIY music videos that cast the band as ice hockey players, Elvis impersonators, secret agents, and more. In the years since their initial noodling around St. Paul, Bad Bad Hats have toured globally with peers like The Beths and Hippo Campus, and storied acts like The Front Bottoms and the aforementioned Michelle Branch, who picked them up for her 2022 headlining world tour. It was a full-circle moment for Kerry, one that she made clear on stage at each show.

Last January, Kerry, Chris, and longtime bandmate Con Davison cozied up under frigid winter in Chris and Kerry’s Twin Cities home, writing and recording their latest, self-titled LP. Each day for two weeks, Kerry would make sandwiches for lunch (tuna salad on Tuesdays), and the crew would get to work in the basement home studio, stacked to the brim with gear. The group recorded more quickly than usual, and even incorporated a few songwriting prompts sent in directly from their fans as jumping-off points. Where BBH are typically known for big song topics like love and heartache, Kerry took to smaller ideas this go round—included are songs inspired by parking tickets, scorching Tampa grocery store lots she remembered from her youth, and other autobiographical scenes woven into dancefloor-ready numbers.

Today, Bad Bad Hats are back to their founding duo, and their upcoming record is the band’s first time self-producing, with a freewheeling, pristine tone and several unexpectedly funky turns. The new album suggests a band still having deep fun creating and playing, inviting listeners new and old to live life to their heartfelt tunes. Bad Bad Hats will be available on April 12, 2024 via Don Giovanni Records.

MAKR AN ERIS

A Twin Cities transplant by way of Richmond, Virginia, Mark McGee (aka MAKR) is a key creative contributor to multiple musical projects, including Father You See Queen, RONiiA, Marijuana Deathsquads, and To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie, amongst others, as well as his 2019 collaboration with Channy Leaneagh (Poliça), Mina Moore, and Alex Nutter (Boyz Noise) called Ringing Bell. McGee also wrote an original score for Lotte Reiniger’s silent film The Adventures of Prince Achmed as part of the Walker Art Center’s Music + Film series in August 2015. MAKR, McGee’s solo project, is designed to explore music through repetition, slowly unraveling itself into an epic story.

Sophia Eris is a DJ/MC currently residing in Minneapolis, MN. Born as a Military Brat, she has moved through many different homes & influences that has left her open-minded and forever a student of life. Musically, she has used her upbringing to cultivate her skills in the exact same way.

She is now a DJ for the booming new Hip Hop radio station in Minneapolis, Go 95.3, and also the touring DJ for the newly Atlantic Records signee, Lizzo. Together the two have opened up for acts such as SZA, CHVRCHES, Sleater-Kinney and more. They have also performed in the Late Night Television circuit for David Letterman & Stephen Colbert, and just recently broke through on the Emmy-nominated Daytime TV hit, The Real.

In the festival circuit, they have slayed internationally at Glastonbury, Wireless Fest, Bonnaroo, SXSW, and more! As a solo artist, she represents her crew GRRRL PRTY, and has had the honor of collaborating with the legendary late great Prince on the 3RDEYEGIRL track "BOYTROUBLE". Her highly anticipated self-titled debut album produced by Prophis was released on July 19, 2016 and she looks forward to continuing to conquer every one of her endeavors. Stay tuned.

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