By Reader Staff
The Festival at Sandpoint recently released another lineup announcement with Neon Trees set to play Thursday, July 24, with tickets on sale for $55.50. Member pre-sale tickets are available Thursday, March 20 from 10 a.m.-11:50 p.m., after which general admission tickets will be offered.
The synth pop and indie rock band from Provo, Utah, has gained a following for testing the line between pop and rock.
Courtesy photo
Since releasing its debut album, Habits (2010), Neon Trees has established itself as a dynamic, engaging band, performing at major festivals like Coachella, Bonnaroo, Life Is Beautiful and Bottle Rock. Opening for artists ranging from My Chemical Romance to Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift — as well as headlining sold-out tours of its own — Neon Trees has amassed 1 billion streams and recently logged more than 40 million views on TikTok.
With acclaim from Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and USA Today, the band continues to push upward with each subsequent release.
“If you’re going to do something, do it with all you’ve got,” said Tyler Glenn (lead vocals, piano, keys).
That sensibility typified Neon Trees’ fifth studio album, Sink Your Teeth (2024).
“Our last album came out during the pandemic, and it was a terrible time to put out an album,” Glenn said. “So I focused on what I could control. Most of us were out in orbit, spiraling, but writing music was something I could do. I wrote by myself, I wrote with other artists and this collection of songs came from that.
Like all of Neon Trees’ work, the album explores a balance between the dark and the light.
“The question was, ‘How do I capture that energy and that feeling of anxiety, but not make it solely about a period of time in our lives or make people only reflect on that when they listen?’” Glenn said of the album. “The songs do contain some of the anxiety and existential crisis I was feeling, but there’s also a thread of hope. It’s not wrapped neatly in a bow at the end, but there’s still a hopefulness.”
The album’s debut single, “Favorite Daze,” acts as a bridge between what Neon Trees has done on past albums and how the band has evolved. The track, which started as a poem, was a collaboration between Glenn and Joe Janiak and features a frenetic, fast-paced rock vibe with an anthemic chorus.
“It was a perfect entry point because it sounds like something classic you would hear from us, but then the chorus explodes into a more modern, slicker vibe that we haven’t always played with,” Glenn said. “It feels like something new. But I’m also being really specific and explicit in the lyrics. I’m speaking honestly and directly to the listener, and I want them to feel that — not just on this song, but on the entire album.”
General admission tickets for Neon Trees at the Festival at Sandpoint go on sale Friday, March 21 at festivalatsandpoint.com.
While we have you ...
... if you appreciate that access to the news, opinion, humor, entertainment and cultural reporting in the Sandpoint Reader is freely available in our print newspaper as well as here on our website, we have a favor to ask. The Reader is locally owned and free of the large corporate, big-money influence that affects so much of the media today. We're supported entirely by our valued advertisers and readers. We're committed to continued free access to our paper and our website here with NO PAYWALL - period. But of course, it does cost money to produce the Reader. If you're a reader who appreciates the value of an independent, local news source, we hope you'll consider a voluntary contribution. You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.
You can contribute at either Paypal or Patreon.
Contribute at Patreon Contribute at Paypal
Coming up this week! Don’t miss The Ray of Hope Luncheon, Harry Potter, a Spring Spike-Off, and more! See the full list of events in the 
