Judah & the Lion @ The Union 10.07

Heartbreak, loss, anxiety, depression, all the everyday struggles of being human—Akers and Macdonald created a space for the room to feel it all in one collective moment. Photo: Jess Gruneisen.

Image: Jess Gruneisen

Concert

Energy pulsed through a sea of faces at The Union on Tuesday night, each bathed in light and upturned toward the stage. The gravelly, breathless voice of Judah Akers imbued each lyric with genuine emotion—it was clear that these songs are deeply personal for the lead singer of Judah & the Lion.

The duo has been together for over a decade now, he told the night’s crowd with an exhale of disbelief. This stop in Salt Lake City, with openers Town of Trees and Abe Parker, was part of a 17-city tour for their new album, The Process. “It doesn’t matter how small the crowd is, or how big the crowd is in Salt Lake. It’s one of our favorite shows of all time,” Akers said, met with a roar of approval. “You guys are making this Tuesday feel very much like a Saturday.”

Like the album, released in May, the show was broken up in parts inspired by the five stages of grief, announced with projected lettering for each emotion: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The band moved between songs seamlessly for the first part of the show, letting the music speak for itself.

For the longtime fans, which seemed to make up almost entirely the first half of the room, Akers played a spread of their top hits from earlier eras. “Quarter Life Crisis,” “Suit and Jacket,” “Take It All Back” and “Beautiful Anyway” were sprinkled throughout the show. They also played a majority of The Process, and despite being out for only five months, you could hear the room singing along to every word, especially tracks like “Is What It Is” and “Only Want The Best.” “Salt Lake, I only want the best for you,” Akers shouted during the chorus.

Mandolinist Brian Macdonald kept a lively strum throughout the set, and the two bandmates joked about the “best sounding crowd” singing, surprisingly, on pitch. Before leaving for a planned encore, Akers said, “the word that keeps coming to our minds after these shows is extreme gratitude … With our music, we want you to feel safe. When you come to our shows, we want this to be a sacred spot.”

And for many, it seemed to do just that—the room sucked people in like a portal to another dimension; the world and all its struggles fell away. People sang along as each song became their personal mantra: “It is what it is / Wasn’t meant to happen any other way,” “Some of us alive / We’re all gonna die one day,” “I’d take it all back just to have you,” “I used to feel so strong now I feel like a loser” and so many more, shouted back with just as much emotion.

Heartbreak, loss, anxiety, depression, all the everyday struggles of being human—Akers and Macdonald created a space for the room to feel it all in one collective moment. “These songs and these words obviously mean so much to us, but the fact that they’ve become your stories, it’s just mind blowing to me,” said Akers. As long as people keep showing out for the shows, Akers promised the band would keep coming, so make sure to catch their next one.