Moody shoegaze bands, plush monkeys strapped to remote controlled cars and countless raving college students — all of this and more invaded Chicago’s underground venues this weekend as a part of the 20th annual “Tomorrow Never Knows” festival.
The event, hosted across over eight different venues on the north side of the city from Jan. 15 to 19, celebrated a variety of artists from around the Chicagoland area and across the country.
The name comes from “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” an event hosted in a variety of different locations across the world from 1999-2016. The gimmick was that organizers would choose idiosyncratic combinations of bands to host back-to-back on stage: rapper Frank Ocean performed right before classical pianist Phillip Glass back in 2012.
Beginning in 2005, the festival first came about from Matt Rucins, a talent buyer for Schubas Tavern. As an organizer, he wanted to make winter more fruitful for the venue as Chicago’s trademark cold weather and a lack of bookings led to a slow few months.
“Lincoln Hall didn’t even exist yet,” said Dan Apodaca, a senior talent buyer for Audiotree Presents and the current talent buyer for Lincoln Hall and Schubas Tavern (now a conjoined organization). “Once it opened, it was brought into the fold, and over those initial years my predecessor expanded it into the multi-venue identity the festival takes on today.”
On Jan 16, Lincoln Hall was host to a string of DJs as a part of Audiotree’s “Oddly Satisfying” series. Chicago DJ Hafsa Guled (known by his pseudonym AYEEYO) opened for a set from popular indie artists April Grey (Underscores) and Liam Hall (atlgrandma). The two collaborated with Ky Newman, a YouTuber who recently entered the DJ scene.
Taylor Ptack, a burgeoning DJ in her own right, found out about the set via a friend.
“My friend, Noah Sellers, asked me if I wanted to see April live,” Ptack said. “I wanted to get into the Chicago DJ scene, and I’m just kind of a pussy about it. My community is more online so I’m trying to get to know people in real life. It’s scary, but I’ve played a few sets as of now and I love it.”
Megan Gauthier, a junior at Loyola Chicago who attended the show, finds that shows are a place to let loose and socialize.
“I love the environment for its typical lack of judgment — I love going and dancing with my friends knowing nobody will clown us,” Gauthier said. “I wasn’t super familiar with atlgrandma which is funny because they’re technically the headliner, but I really enjoyed his set.”
Apodaca and Connor Campbell, the assistant talent buyer for Lincoln Hall and Schubas, emphasized how “Tomorrow Never Knows” (TNK) is a “discovery festival.”
“The bigger festivals — Riot Fest, Lollapalooza, etc. — those festivals have a ton of discovery for people that are looking, but we’re trying to be a little bit on the cutting edge before things get to that level,” Campbell said.
Julia’s War, an indie label based out of Philadelphia, had a takeover at Schubas Tavern on Jan. 18, highlighting six bands underneath the label.
“(Performing) feels like a completely different than recording, I think … when you perform, it’s a lot more adrenaline and immediacy whereas in recording you kind of have to look for that sort of thing,” said Logan Hornyak, the lead singer and guitarist of Melania Kol, a indie folk band based out of Nashville.
Sam Silbret, one half of the duo known as Hooky, came off the stage bleeding from the nose and lip as a result of injuries sustained from thrashing around on stage and throwing himself on the floor.
“(Performing) is my favorite thing,” said Silbret. “Every part of the country I go to, there’s always just some really sweet kids who love music. Going to different places and meeting earnest people who also love making music just makes me feel inspired.”
Ruth Trupiano, the lead singer and guitarist for the duo Ruth in the Bardo, used performance as a way to find community in her hometown in South Carolina.
“As a young trans person who was into music and especially the DIY scene there, I feel like that was really the only safe space in that particular city,” Trupiano said. “The person I am on stage is just still the person that I am, only the more ridiculous parts have elevated a little bit because I’m nervous.”
In addition to music, TNK has begun hosting comedic acts over the past few years.
To close out the weekend’s festivities on Jan. 19, the Color Club was host to popular internet comedian and writer Demi Adejuyigbe’s show “Demi Adejuyigbe Is Going To Do One (1) Backflip.”
“I’ve been a live performing comedian for around eight years, although I don’t do it very often,” Adejuyigbe said. “I’ve never loved stand-up. The version of it that I do is very specific and me-coded, but also it’s something I can’t do everyday.”
Adejuyigbe’s show is as much comedy as it is performance art. A projector behind him at all times showcases an elaborate powerpoint, he speaks with characters who exist only over the loudspeaker, he interacts with hand-made puppets which zoom around the stage, and on top of that he plays a series of songs. One of them is an eight-minute long ballad about the niche internet fascination known as the Ikea Monkey.
The show is directed by Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, who perform as the comedy duo Britannica.
“I’ve been a fan of (Demi) since the Twitter days,” attendee Karlyn Meyer said. “He’s uniquely talented. Like his musical ability is tied to something so much bigger. His monologue at the end was really poignant and meaningful.”
The climax of the show sees Adejuyigbe do a backflip to end the performance. At a show in London in March of 2024, he failed to land it and bruised his ribcage.
“I was really upset about that. I needed people to see me perform,” Adejuyigbe said. “Because in a way, when you perform and when you can show people something that’s just a little more than human, you are insulating yourself from all the things that make you human.”
Adejuyigbe still does the backflip, assisted by someone wearing a green morph suit picking him up and spinning him around. The show at the Color Club is a part of a larger tour for Adejuyigbe — he’ll be performing the show in New York in February as a charity benefit to aid those displaced by the Los Angeles fires.
Oddball acts like Adejuyigbe and Julia’s War are what Campbell values most about TNK.
“It kind of represents a lot of what the spirit of the festival is to me, showcasing some underground stuff that continues to push boundaries a little bit,” Campbell said. “It’s like looking back 10 years ago and having Oneohtrix Point Never and Tim Hecker, stuff that’s on the fringe a little bit, and they just continue to grow and grow.”
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