Room for Everyone: Cavetown Models Acceptance and Joy at Salt Shed

By: Shawna O’Hara, Editor – Photos by: James Scully

Robin Skinner and his band poured their hearts and souls into a performance that reassured the audience that earnestness isn’t embarrassing

If you walked into the Salt Shed for Cavetown’s performance not knowing what to expect, you’d be warmly welcomed. The grounds were dotted with knitted hats of all kinds: striped beanies, frog ears, animal ears, odd shapes and playful colors adorned the young, eclectic crowd. The knitwear was impossible to miss, one of the most apparent constants among Cavetown’s quite literally tight-knit fanbase. And the hats have lore.

Robin Skinner, the man behind Cavetown, has long incorporated playful knitwear into his own style. His adoring fans have adopted the look, expanding his choice of headwear into a symbolic nod to the artist and the welcoming community surrounding him. The hats were simply the most visible expression of a crowd confidently comfortable being earnest, strange and conspicuously itself.

Before the hats met their musical inspiration, opening act Chloe Moriondo, a YouTube sensation, set the room on fire with a theatrical, high-energy performance that demanded attention. Her affect was that of a Disney princess; she cussed like a sailor while delivering poppy, and, at times, surprisingly powerful, vocals to the Cavetown faithful.

From the moment Moriondo took the stage, fans screamed for more of her colorful synth-pop, their enthusiasm so palpable it occasionally felt more like a Broadway show. Moriondo danced, kicked, punched and strummed her way through the set, proudly wielding her “new” guitar and at one point leading the audience in a vocal call-and-response.

Though she was pure saccharine in heels, the audience responded with nothing but genuine delight. After all, this was a space where extreme passion and excitement were encouraged rather than met with cynicism. That sense of belonging became explicit when Moriondo polled the crowd on its LGBTQ+ representation and received a jolt of screams, later encouraging a message of community and acceptance as fans chanted her name.

Just before she left, Moriondo tossed the room a curveball with a rendition of Lit’s 1999 alt-rock hit “My Own Worst Enemy.” She did the song justice and then some, as the crowd belted its familiar lyrics alongside her.

If Moriondo established the evening’s spirit, Cavetown gave it considerably more muscle. Skinner emerged atop a platform surrounded by a blue-and-green, almost alien-like set, looking less like an imposing rock star than the kid next door everyone loves. The sound, however, could be surprisingly enormous. Crunchy, grungy guitars collided with deep bass hooks, cymbal-heavy percussion and electronic flourishes that at times made the stage feel like the inside of a video game.

Cavetown’s live sound proved difficult to pin to a single genre, and that unpredictability was part of its charm. At its heaviest, the band veered into genuine alternative rock, while other moments carried the bright electronic sheen of bedroom pop. Skinner could just as easily move in the opposite direction, stripping things back to guitar and a soft, almost Elliott Smith-like intimacy. His voice followed suit, shifting between melodic singing, near-whispers and full-throated shouts, allowing vulnerable lyrics to take on considerably more weight onstage. The band’s drummer was particularly impressive, driving the heavier passages with a force that made Cavetown sound far bigger than its bedroom-pop origins might suggest.

But the most striking instrument in the room may have been the audience itself. “Already, you’re my favorite crowd,” Skinner told Chicago early in the set, and the affection only grew from there. Fans sang nearly every word back to him, seemingly getting louder with each song until thousands of individual voices began to resemble a choir. Skinner encouraged the exchange with call-and-response moments, at one point sitting at the edge of the stage before later racing along the barricade. There was an easy confidence to his performance; despite his gentle demeanor, Skinner maintained remarkable control of the room.

The gentle manner of Skinner’s performance did not automatically translate to stillness. He frequently tore across the stage, at one point running circles around it at full speed, while his band seemed equally eager to join the chaos. His bassist joined in his exuberance throughout the performance, bounding around the stage and playing directly into the evening’s sense of fun. Before “Big Strong Man,” Skinner flexed his biceps and joked that he could take on everyone in the room. It was another reminder that Cavetown makes little distinction between vulnerability and silliness. Both are welcome here.

The evening’s most tender moment came when Skinner spoke about becoming a sibling at 26. He described the experience not simply as a major change in his own life, but as an opportunity to become someone who could help guide his younger sister through hers. The story led naturally into “Micah,” a song dedicated to her, complete with a sweet, almost Beatles-like harmony in its bridge. In a show filled with vulnerable lyrics, the moment gave that vulnerability a tangible subject: love expressed not romantically, but through the responsibility and excitement of getting to help another person grow.

That openness flowed in both directions. One particularly determined fan had been shouting “I love you” toward the stage song after song until Skinner finally stopped and returned the sentiment. The room erupted. At another show, the repeated declaration might have become an annoyance; at a Cavetown show, it was all sincerity.

Moriondo eventually returned to join Skinner, earning another enormous reception from the crowd. Together, the pair made the stage theatrical once again, their voices meeting as the audience enthusiastically welcomed the night’s opener back into Cavetown’s world. The two eventually shared a huge embrace, an appropriately unguarded display of affection during a show practically built around it.

By the closing stretch, the knitted hats scattered throughout the Salt Shed no longer seemed particularly unusual. They belonged there, alongside the shouting, dancing, inside jokes and thousands of voices singing together without a trace of self-consciousness.

Cavetown’s greatest trick that night wasn’t making a room full of people feel close to Robin Skinner. It was creating a room where they seemed entirely comfortable being themselves, and, for a couple of hours, close to one another.