IDKHOW, Jack Lutz
May 22, 2025

House of Blues, Cleveland OH

By Robert McCune

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The air inside the House of Blues on a recent Thursday night felt unusually charged, as if the familiar currents of a rock show were mingling with something altogether more temporally displaced. The sensation was, in many ways, by design, orchestrated by I Don’t Know How But They Found Me (IDKHOW), a musical project that seems to revel in the anachronistic.

The headlining act, often described by its frontman Dallon Weekes as “a band out of time,” draws deeply from the sonic and aesthetic wells of the 1980s. This thematic preoccupation, Mr. Weekes has noted, was sparked by dialogue from the 1985 film “Back to the Future,” and indeed, a sense of temporal elasticity permeated the May 22 performance.

The evening commenced with Jack Lutz, an Ohio native whose youthful appearance—he is in his early twenties—belied a musical sensibility that reached further back. Mr. Lutz and his ensemble delivered an energetic set featuring tracks from his debut full-length EP, “Heartbreak Season.” His performance notably included a rendition of The Beatles’ “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” a song thrice his age, delivered with a verve that seemed to bridge generational divides, evoking the spirit of youthful exuberance reminiscent of early rock and roll.

When IDKHOW took the stage, the atmosphere shifted. Mr. Weekes, who handles bass and vocal duties, cut a striking figure, his performance style echoing the art-rock theatricality of figures like David Byrne of Talking Heads or the new wave quirkiness of Oingo Boingo. Supported by touring members reportedly from the band Phantom Planet, the project—now primarily a solo endeavor for Mr. Weekes—launched into its set with the electronic pulse of “Leave Me Alone,” immediately electrifying the assembled crowd.

The setlist artfully wove together IDKHOW’s distinct brand of indie pop with selections from Mr. Weekes’ earlier band, The Brobecks, such as “Cluster Hug” and “Visitation of the Ghost.” Anthems like “Do It All The Time,” with its driving rhythm and cinematic scope, elicited fervent singalongs that, during instrumental breaks, resonated with an almost haunting melodic quality.

Mr. Weekes demonstrated a penchant for engaging directly with his audience, at one point descending into the crowd with a megaphone. This interlude saw a spontaneous, collective medley that curiously blended Sabrina Carpenter’s recent hit “Please Please Please” with the old folk tune “Pick Poor Robin Clean” (featured in the 1945 film “The Naughty Nineties” and elsewhere) and Chappell Roan’s “Hot To Go,” a moment of shared, eclectic musicality.

The performance also explored heavier sonic territories with the intense two-part offering of “Speak of the Devil” and “Satanic Panic.” In a nod to more recent nostalgia, Mr. Weekes briefly launched into Spacehog’s mid-1990s hit “In the Meantime,” abandoning it after a single chorus, a playful tease for those who caught the reference. After concluding the main set with the popular single “Choke,” a brief intermission preceded a two-song encore.

This began with “Nobody Likes the Opening Band,” a track Mr. Weekes clarified was intended not as a slight, but as an appeal for audiences to remain open to discovering new music. The evening culminated with the titular track from their album “Razzmatazz,” as IDKHOW concluded their set amidst a wash of colored spotlights, leaving the impression of a band not just playing songs, but perhaps, for a night, subtly bending the continuum of musical eras.