with guest Matthew Logan Vasquez Official Tickets: Etix/Cascade Tickets is the official ticketing source and partner of the Crystal Ballroom -- The Midwest, particularly the part of the Midwest Eric D. Johnson hails from, is a largely flat expanse. Zipping through it on the highway, you'll see cities and towns rise up in the distance, but blink and you'll miss other man-made rejoinders to horizontal living dotting the landscape: hill after hill, built from the refuse of the past-landfills. Some of these hills make for great sledding spots, parks, and trails. Others turn organic waste into compost. The Landfill, Fruit Bats' June 12, 2026 album from Merge Records, is something else entirely: a mountain dominating the landscape of Johnson's heart. This being a Fruit Bats record, one scales that mountain to take in the view, to see the future spread out as wide and endless as the Midwestern plains. 'But the mountain that gives us this vantage point,' Johnson says, 'is made out of the trash that we've created, the collective weight of the past and where it's taken us.' When he details that view on title track and lead single 'The Landfill'-'a holy vision / of what could be / and couldn't be / and could have been'-it's thrilling to hear him sent soaring by a full complement of instruments. But what's truly stunning is how, in his recontouring from could to couldn't to could have been, he has lost none of the vulnerability that was brought to the foreground of his songwriting by 2025's solo outing, Baby Man. Over the course of his now 25-year career under the moniker, most of Eric D. Johnson's output as Fruit Bats has been the product of patience and fine-tuning. His songs, to borrow a phrase, are slow growers, given life on albums that encompass long stretches of time and memory. Baby Man changed that-he disallowed himself from referring to material he'd been working on before laying the album down, utilizing the morning pages technique of stream-of-consciousness, observational songwriting which flowed directly into his afternoon recording sessions. It was both a breathtaking document of Johnson's skill as a singer-songwriter and an unvarnished account of the two weeks in which he recorded the album. Event details https://www.crystalballroompdx.com/events/276064-fruit-bats/ -- Please note: - All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges. - We will follow all state and local Covid-19 guidelines in place at the time of each show. - General admission venue, standing room only. Limited amount of mezzanine seats available for purchase for patrons 21+ only. (Note: Row A Seats 14-17 and Row B Seats 14-18 have an obstructed view) - For accessible seating you must agree that you have a mobility disability or a disability that requires the use of the accessible features that are provided in accessible seating or you are purchasing these tickets for an individual who has a mobility disability or a disability that requires the use of the accessible features that are provided in accessible seating -