The Strumbellas • Hotel Fiction • March 13, 2026 • The Complex
Reviewed and Photographed by Amelia Weyerstall
Excited fans filled The Complex on Friday, the 13th of March. Fans of all ages turned out to see The Strumbellas and Hotel Fiction play live in downtown Salt Lake City.
Hotel Fiction
Originally from Athens, Georgia, best friends and leading members of the band, Jade Lockhart (keys and vocals) and Jessica Thompson (guitar and vocals) created the band Hotel Fiction. People were jamming out to Hotel Fiction’s night with their dreamy pop feel, bopping their heads along to the catchy lyrics and beats.
Luckily for the Utah crowd, it was the last night that Hotel Fiction was opening for The Strumbellas, so they got to see an amazing performance. In regards to their time touring, Lockheart said, “Who’s excited for The Strumbellas??? We have loved touring with them so much. They’re really, really great people, and great musicians, and this is our last show with them, which is sad, so we’re glad to be doing it with y’all.” It was very sweet to the headlining band, and it got the audience even more hyped up to see them.
Hotel Fiction loves their fans as much as the fans love them. One fan held up a huge sign that said, “Astronaut”, and the band responded by saying, “Oh my goodness, we are going to have to change our whole set because you made a special sign. If you had just shouted it, we wouldn’t have done it, but you have a special sign. After this one? Or should we do it now, guys? All right, for you guys, this one’s called “Astronaut Kids”.” The fans definitely loved this song, dancing along and singing their hearts out.
Hotel Fiction has a way of telling their stories through their songs that is so deep, Lockhart shared an emotional moment with the crowd, “This next song is a new one, and we wrote it about my moms battle with cancer, and she’s still fighting to this day, but she is the strongest person I know, and so this one’s for you.” Before playing their unreleased song, “For You I Will” This song was very emotional for the crowd, causing people to hug their loved ones throughout the crowd.
Hotel Fiction thanked the crowd endlessly for their time and for showing up to watch them play. “Thank you so much for showing up early to see the opening band. I know that that is something not everyone does, so it’s all really cool that you’re all such music lovers and supportive of small indie bands like us.” This made the whole crowd cheer, as they loved to see a newfound favorite band playing in front of them.
The Strumbellas
Canadian band, The Strumbellas, combines their “folk popgrass” sound and their deep lyrics to create a show that had their fans dancing along to their beat and singing along to their words. To open the show, Lead Singer, Jimmy Chauveau, started the show on a positive note by saying,
“Good evening, we are The Strumbellas. It is a pleasure to be here with you guys tonight. Listen, whatever madness is happening outside these 4 walls, we’re gonna forget about it for the next 85 minutes. You guys have us, and we have you guys. Let’s have some fun, yeah?” It was a wonderful way to make all the fans feel like a family.
A few songs later, Pianist David Ritter followed this up by saying, “Welcome to the Into Dust tour, we’re really excited to be here. This is a really special night. I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but three strumbellas are wearing bandanas right now. I mean, like three is the perfect number because it’s too many to be a coincidence, but not enough to be a theme. So it’s sort of enough to make people go like, huh, oh, interesting. Anyway, I made a bet with Jimmy backstage that if we cheer loud enough, he has to wear it for the rest of the tour. You guys are ready to help me with this, three, two, one! Haha, suck it, Jimmy! (cheering loudly from the crowd). All right, this next song is about my victory over Jimmy; it’s called “Maybe it’s Me.” The crowd loved this bit between the two musicians and friends.
The high energy performance from The Strumbellas is mostly due to the energy of performance from Chauveau, who recently became the frontman for the band in 2022. Jumping around the stage encouraged fans to jump around with him, enjoying the songs and the concert. Chauveau seemed to be having even more fun than the already high-energy crowd.
Canadian rock band, The Strumbellas, were loved by the crowd for all of their songs, but especially for the fan favorite that closed out the night. Widely known and popular, their song “Spirits” had the crowd singing along to the words they knew by heart. It was the perfect way to end the night off on a bang.