The Lumineers: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

This performance was recorded on Feb. 28, 2020. We will continue releasing Tiny Desk videos of shows that had already been taped. In light of current events, NPR is postponing new live tapings of Tiny Desk Concerts. In the meantime, check out Tiny Desk (home) concerts! They’re recorded by the artists in their home. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. Did you know you can watch new Tiny Desk concerts on npr.org ONE WEEK before they go up on YouTube Click here: https://www.npr.org/tinydesk Follow NPR Music: Twitter: https://twitter.com/nprmusic Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nprmusic April 6, 2020 | Josh Rogosin -- The Lumineers showed up at the Tiny Desk with family, friends and crew who travel with the tight-knit touring band. One special guest in particular was Lenny, the toddler son of lead singer Wes Schultz. As soon as Bob Boilen met Lenny, Bob searched for every toy he could find on the shelves behind his desk to entertain the restless tyke. I've always been struck by how this band can make a crowd of 6,000 fans feel like an intimate jam session. Halfway through The Lumineers' set at the Newport Folk Festival in 2013, the entire band moved to the very back of the enormous crowd. I remember marveling that the worst spot in the field miraculously became the best. Much of The Lumineers' Tiny Desk comes from the band's third LP, III, which tells a story of addiction in three acts. They began with gut-wrenching renditions of "Gloria" and "Leader Of The Landslide"(accompanied by a cassette recording of crickets made on iPhones and dubbed to play on a boombox). The third track is also from III, but was an assignment from director M. Night Shyamalan. He tasked Schultz and his suspender-clad writing partner, Jeremiah Fraites, with composing a song for the end credits of a film. "Jer and I worked really hard on that, and then he didn't need it," Schultz confessed. The result is the stark and haunting "Salt And The Sea,"which strikes a different ch