Second Half AND Anthony Worden & the Illiterati
September 19 at 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm
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Sponsored by RDG
6:30PM-7:15PM: Second Half
7:30PM-9:00PM: Anthony Worden & the Illiterati
About:
Second Half is an Iowa City alternative-rock band playing everything from Midwest emo to power pop to punk rock. Drawing inspiration from bands such as Modest Mouse, Pavement, Joyce Manor, and the Beths, we’ve been playing together since 2024. At the end of the day, we’re just four friends that love making music!
Sometimes to go forward, you first have to go back—and the only way to pass through the present undaunted is to unencumber oneself of the past.
Contact Information:
Web: https://linktr.ee/thesecondhalfband InstagramOther links:
Summer of the Arts Festivals:
About:
For Anthony Worden, the process of moving past an onslaught of sudden grief crystalized in an Iowa City basement, and—over the course of half a year of writing and rehearsing with his band, the Illiterati—took on the form of his fifth studio album, Plain Angels. Sourced from a period that Worden describes as something of a “social reset,” characterized by the end of a long-term relationship (a development that upended his recent move to Kansas and spurred him to re-relocate to his native city), paired with a series of health scares in his immediate family and the death of an extended family member, the songwriter found himself contending with “big feelings” like “the realization that your loved ones aren’t going to be around forever.” Amidst a blisteringly cold Iowa winter—during which Worden’s day job as an electrician apprentice had him “thrown into installing solar panels in subzero weather on the farms, hog barns, and small towns of the middle part of the state”—he also found himself asking even bigger questions: “With everything that happened, I found myself almost resetting my worth, asking myself—what am I doing here?”
With emotional baggage in toe, Worden holed up in the unfinished cellar studio of band bassist Lucas Adolphson, spending “a lot of time with a glass of whisky” to divine art from feeling. The end result is a collection of ten tracks that’s as meditative as it is triumphant, presented as a loose narrative of personal resilience. Whether it’s charting the hope that comes with starting over somewhere new (“On My Way 2U”), becoming more aware of your fading youth in a college town (“Down But Not Yet Out”), the myriad feelings you feel on a funeral day (“Death of the Wife”) or encountering an ex after some-but-not-all wounds have healed (“Strangers”), the anecdotes that form Angels together create a picture of bittersweet acceptance, uplifted by Worden’s candid lyricism, the Illiterati’s refreshing approach to contemporary rock—which feels as indebted to 70s new wave as it does in early 2000s power pop thanks to the performances by Adolphson, keyboardist/producer Avery Moss, and drummer Aaron Knight—as well as mastering by Huntley Miller, who previously collaborated with indie heavyweights Bon Iver, Low, and Wednesday.
Contact Information:
Web: https://anthonyworden.bandcamp.com/releasesOther links:
https://www.facebook.com/anthonywordenmusic/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPe5xuRWbRg
