Future Islands: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert From The Archives

We’ve been filming Tiny Desk concerts for more than 10 years. While revisiting our archives, we discovered that some of our earliest concerts never made it to YouTube! Watch Future Islands’ Tiny Desk concert from 2011: Frannie Kelley | May 16, 2011 Future Islands’ members showed up with the biggest amplifier we’ve ever squeezed behind Bob Boilen’s desk. Then, because they’re such nice guys, they tried to keep it down. Tamping down the levels didn’t dampen their intensity, though, and by the third song, the band and the crowd were struggling to keep it office-appropriate. The band’s goal, of course, was to make us break (it) down. “I want you to cry,“ said Sam Herring, who sings and writes all the lyrics. “I want you to feel the way I feel.“ He said that, in songs like “On the Water,“ he’s using the fewest words possible to communicate most dir