Owatonna People's Press- Sunday, May 02, 2008

Family Band
Cloud Cult delivers the love at First Avenue

 

Cloud Cult can’t be described simply as a band. And while they do have a message, “cult” is definitely not an accurate descriptor. The Forms, a New York band who opened for Cloud Cult at Minneapolis club First Avenue Apr. 26, had it right when they called Cloud Cult a “family.”

Not only does the band consist of seven people (that’s one more than the Partridge Family) and have family ties inside the group (Owatonna natives Craig and Connie Minowa are married), but they share the love with their fans and share the spotlight with each other. Despite national attention, including a nod from Rolling Stone calling the 13-year-old band a “breaking artist” this month, the group was primarily backlit at First Ave., making no member the star. The most light probably graced the faces of the collective’s two on-stage painters, likely just so they could actually see what they were creating.

To say artists painting while a rock band performs in front of a packed house is rare would be an understatement, but Connie Minowa and fellow Owatonna High School graduate Scott West do not seem out of place with Cloud Cult. On opposite ends of the stage, they danced to the music as they worked their canvases, which were sold through auction after the show. If that wasn’t enough to prove Cloud Cult isn’t just a band, visual effects were projected on a screen behind the “family” and on televisions throughout the club as Craig Minowa warbled to violin, cello, keyboards, bass and drums.

The crowd was also atypical for a First Ave. rock show. While the majority of the fans were 20-teenagers and 20-somethings, middle-agers and even some families with young children hung out on the balcony toward the back of the venue. In front of the stage, however, hands marked with black Xs from wrist to knuckles outnumbered those wearing over-21 wristbands along the barricade 10-to-one. Sam Pearson, of Minneapolis, and Rosa Raarup, of Stillwater, scoped out their front row spots early. The two, both 17, were seeing Cloud Cult for the first time.

“They made Minneapolis cool again,” said Pearson, who touted the group’s upbeat music, positive lyrics and proliferation despite being independent artists from the Midwest.

Both also said they appreciate Cloud Cult’s eco-friendly message. Raarup described her father as an organic “mini-farmer” who gardens to sustain himself. The teenagers both belong to community cooperatives and admire how the band was “green” long before it was cool, yet said they “don’t preach.”

Releasing their latest album Feel Good Ghosts (Teapartying Through Tornadoes) -- packaged in recycled materials, of course -- a few weeks prior to the Minneapolis show was either brilliant foresight or a stroke of great luck, as fans sang along to everything, including the new tracks. The home field advantage was particularly obvious after playing 2007’s “Take Your Medicine,” to which concertgoers reacted with extended and thundering applause. Frontman Craig Minowa responded, shouting, “You guys are crazy.”

Sometimes a crazy family just works.