Pop/Rock
The Lumineers

In the spring of 2005, childhood friends Wesley Shultz and Jeremiah Fraites began to collaborate, writing together and playing gigs around New York. After battling the city’s cutthroat music scene, the two packed everything they owned and headed for Denver, Colorado. The first thing they did was place a Craigslist ad for a cellist, and the first person to respond was Neyla Pekarek. As a trio, they began playing at the Meadowlark, a gritty basement club where the city’s most talented songwriters gathered every Tuesday for an open mic. And so The Lumineers sound took shape; an amalgam of heart-swelling stomp-and-clap acoustic rock, classic pop, and front-porch folk. In 2011, an eponymous, self-recorded EP led to a self-booked tour, and before long, The Lumineers started attracting devout fans. Young, old and in-between, they’re drawn by songs like “Ho Hey” and “Stubborn Love,” Americana-inflected barnburners in the vein of the Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons. They’re drawn by songs like “Slow it Down” and “Dead Sea,” slow, sultry ballads that suggest the raw revelations of Jeff Buckley and Ryan Adams. They’re drawn by the live Lumineers experience — a coming-together in musical solidarity against isolation, adversity, and despair. Powered by passion, ripened by hard work, The Lumineers have found their sound when the world needs it most. They released Cleopatra in 2016 - and they continue to tour and shake up the world.