Modest Mouse at the Hollywood Palladium

30 Years of Beautiful Noise

Modest Mouse’s discography expands across numerous genres. Indie-Rock, Alternative Rock, Post-punk, and early Emo styles. Isaac Brock has spent over thirty years making music that denies any genre. No small feat. His early 1996 EP Interstate 8 was a stake in the musical ground tethering his sprawling tent of genres Brock would continue building for the next three decades.

What makes Brock such an interesting songwriter isn’t necessarily the complexity of his language, but how he uses the simplest observations to reach something much larger. He can take an otherwise mundane encounter, a passing frustration, or an uncomfortable thought about being alive and turn it into something that feels both ridiculous and profoundly familiar. He isn’t pretending to know more than you. He isn’t delivering some grand belief system for you to adopt. He’s simply explaining how he sees the world, and in the middle of recognizing that, you begin to recognize yourself in it.

Thirty years into Modest Mouse’s recorded history, that approach hasn’t lost its charm.

On Tuesday, October 20, KUCI caught Modest Mouse at the Hollywood Palladium for a stop on their An Eraser and a Maze tour, accompanied by opener Caroline Rose. The evening felt like a celebration of the band’s longevity, but not in the sentimental, greatest-hits kind of way. There was something much more restless happening onstage.

The night was held captive by an intense, almost furious love for the craft. Brock seemed entirely consumed by the music, feeding off his bandmates, his own lyrics, and the audience answering back. It wasn’t the sort of performance where an artist simply arrives, plays the familiar songs, and leaves with the satisfaction of a job well done. There was an urgency to it, as though the songs still had something to prove.

The crowd was just as peculiar as the music. Teenagers pressed up against the barricade, longtime fans well into their forties, and older rock enthusiasts who had probably been listening to Modest Mouse longer than some of the people beside them had been alive. It wasn’t a homogeneous audience by any stretch. More like a crowd built from rainbow-colored blocks. Mouse ears, graphic tees, too much perfume, and an almost ridiculous amount of affection for the band filled the room.

There is something really sweet about seeing that many different generations of people lose their minds over the same strange songs.

Modest Mouse opened with “King Rat,” followed by “Speak ‘n Spell (Or Not),” (a personal favorite)  immediately throwing the Palladium into the heavier, more abrasive side of their catalog. Joined by the band’s touring musicians, Brock pushed through the opening numbers with a kind of disorderly precision. The guitars were jagged, the percussion relentless, and the whole thing felt like it might slip out of control at any moment.

That tension has always been part of Modest Mouse’s appeal. Their music can sound loose, even unstable, but the instability feels purposeful. A song can collapse into noise and then find its way back to a melody you didn’t realize you were waiting for. Live, those shifts become much harder to ignore. Every sharp guitar line and sudden change in rhythm feels physical.

I’ve seen Modest Mouse before, at Shaky Knees in Atlanta, Georgia, where they ran through a collection of classics and, surprisingly, left out “Float On.” That performance was enjoyable, but the Hollywood Palladium felt different. Brock was more absorbed, more connected to the musicians around him (and much less direct sunlight too). There were moments when he seemed to disappear into the songs entirely. Watching him play felt less like watching someone revisit an old catalog and more like watching someone get lost in something he still genuinely loves.

That difference matters for a band with this much history. After decades of touring, recording, and performing songs that have become deeply personal to thousands of strangers, it would be easy for the music to become routine. But nothing about this performance suggested routine.

As the set moved through “3rd Planet,” “Missed the Boat,” “Life Like Weeds,” and “Dramamine,” the evening began to feel like a tour through the many different versions of Modest Mouse. The anxious, wiry early material sat alongside songs with a more expansive and polished sound. But rather than separating those eras, the performance made them feel connected. The same restless mind seemed to run through all of it. And that restless mind continued, leading up to “Talkin Shit About A Pretty Sunset.” The atmosphere shifted into one of anguish and excitement. It’s one of those tracks that you find yourself in time and time again, when cynicism clouds your judgement and the world feels out to get you. As Brock sang, the vociferous crowd sang along with him; it was a moment of solidarity, a time of unity, and a reflection that we all experience the mundane frustrations that life throws at us.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an encore executed quite like this one.

The familiar theme from Jaws filled the room as turquoise lights blinded the audience, followed by sharp pulses of red. It was theatrical, a little absurd, and completely fitting for a band that has never seemed particularly interested in doing things the normal way. And then the band returned.

“March Into the Sea.” “Custom Concern.” “Float On.” “Cowboy Dan.” An almost unreasonable sequence of songs to hear back-to-back.

What I loved most about this performance was that Modest Mouse never felt like a band trying to remind an audience why they used to matter. The music was alive, unpredictable, and occasionally messy in all the ways that made it interesting in the first place.

Isaac Brock has spent more than three decades turning everyday irritations, existential questions, and simple observations into an entire musical universe. And on this particular Tuesday night in Hollywood, that universe felt as strange and inviting as ever.

I’ve been to plenty of shows where the encore feels like an obligation.

Never have I been so satisfied.

Words by Grace De Leon & Marley Nelson| Big Sis Radio, KUCI 88.9 FM