Video | The Head and the Heart Performs “Rivers and Roads”

Photos by Katie Guymon

Last night, Seattle’s The Head and the Heart stopped through Saint Louis after Bonnaroo to play a sold-out show at The Duck Room. Right from the get go, the room felt buzzy and alive (communal, almost?), and the six-piece treated the gig like a basement house party, not showing any signs of exhaustion from the four-day music festival from which they’d traveled.

For as heart-wrenching at the band’s self-titled debut LP (now out on Sub Pop) can sometimes be, the live show sure doesn’t emulate that. All six members – Josiah, Jonathan, Charity, Chris, Kenny, and Tyler – pack a wallop. Just watch the video below.

Last night, it felt like magic had been bottled in the basement of The Duck Room, at least for an hour and a half, a secret meeting of hearts (and, yes, heads), and who knows? We may never pass this way again.

Check out the rest of our Head and the Heart pictures HERE. To see pictures from the band’s earlier in-store performance at Vintage Vinyl, head over to music VS man.


I think I’ve watched this video of set closer, “River and Roads” fifty-four times already. I love the hush that (finally!) goes over the crowd around the 0:45 mark. I adore when the percussion starts up, simple bass drum and maracas, and the audience starts hootin’ and hollerin’. I get serious cold chills when Charity freaking wails on her solo at the end. “Rivers and Roads” has a little bit of that Arcade Fire “Wake Up” quality: man, does it make you wanna go out and do something. In this case specifically, mend all your broken relationships. In a world where two simple words are never flung from our mouths with ease, I think it’s rather revolutionary that a mere song can elicit the extreme desire to say, “I’m sorry.”

And that, my friends, is The Head and the Heart.

The Head and the Heart – “Rivers and Roads”

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