Coinciding with the release of the deluxe version of their latest record “Ooh La La,” Guster will be continuing their “We Also Have Eras” tour at Seattle’s Moore Theatre on Feb. 11. A play on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, this tour sees the group taking fans through the over 30 year story of Guster. The alternative rockers are renowned for their extensive history of live shows and catchy songs, the history of which will be captured and retold in their upcoming show.
Instead of just playing through their greatest hits, the band has prepared set pieces and exposition to contextualize their older work and better introduce their new songs. Building sets and discussing the stories behind the band has lent particularly well to Guster’s earlier tracks which were written in their college days before they found success with the release of “Lost and Gone Forever” in 1999.
Guster drummer and writer Brian Rosenworcel believes the narrative framing of their tour helps their older tracks age better.
“Those first two albums in particular are the ones we struggle the most with,” Rosenworcel said. “A few songs have held up, not all of them. We’re playing them really stripped down with a dorm room backdrop so that it gives the full context. The sort of theatrical context of it helps it feel like we’re telling a story, and this material is relevant to the story and I’m cool with that.”
The decision to undergo a tour reminiscent of Taylor Swift’s record breaking Eras Tour came when Relix Magazine’s vice president Mike Greenhaus suggested the idea to Rosenworcel. Rosenworcel discussed the idea with the rest of Guster and drafted a 15 page script cataloging the history, music, and ups and downs of the band. The resulting show turned into something far beyond a Taylor Swift parody.
“This show is chronological and it’s interspliced with very cheap set design and skits, ” Rosenworcel said. “It’s really unlike any rock concert I’ve seen. We’re doing a lot of story telling about how the band formed and the various high points and low points in our career. It’s really dorky but it’s really fun for us to be getting laughs and showing people the music in the order it was released. It kind of shows the evolution of our sound.”
In addition to revisiting their classic songs, the band will also play tracks of their latest album “Ohh La La.” The record was born out of studio jam sessions from incomplete songs across 2020 and 2021. Since then, the band has been working to engrain their new tracks into their sets in a way that is true to their discography. Songs like “Black Balloon,” “Keep Going” and “When We Were Stars” are new mainstays in their sets, while still leaving room for the classic tunes their fans are familiar with. Getting the opportunity to prove that their new material has merit to their established audience helps the performances still feel fresh for the group.
“Making music that’s still good and makes your proud and feels relevant is a big part of it,” Rosenworcel said. “If we were just here playing nostalgic songs from our first albums, we would lose interest. There’s definitely still some fire to prove ourselves and to add to our catalog that gets deeper every time we put out a record.”
Guster has been touring profusely since the 90s. While the abundance of shows they play may be too much for some bands, the members of Guster have still remained tight as ever.
“The relationships in the band are still strong,” Rosenworcel said. “We communicate well, the relationships are good, the friendships are strong. That makes a difference when you’re writing music, it makes a difference when you’re on stage together. It’s something we’ve grown into, it’s not like we haven’t had our bumps, and we even show a lot of the bumps in the storytelling of this tour. But we’ve done a good job maturing into it.”
Guster plays at The Moore Theater on Feb. 11. Tickets can be found at https://www.stgpresents.org/stg-venues/moore-theatre/events/
