Fruit Bats Solo (USA)

Fruit Bats – formed as the project of Eric D. Johnson (USA) – are one of the most in-demand live acts in indie rock. Eric D. Johnson journeys in from the USA to take to the Meeniyan stage, solo, celebrating their 2026 album The Landfill.

The midwest, particularly the part of the midwest Eric D. Johnson hails from, is a largely flat expanse. Fruit Bats’ June 12, 2026 album The Landfill, released via Merge Records, draws inspiration from the landfill hills scattered across the largely flat Midwestern United States landscape. Some of these man-made hills become parks or trails; for Johnson, they symbolise the emotional weight of the past.

“The mountain that gives us this vantage point is made out of the trash that we’ve created,” he says. On the title track and lead single “The Landfill,” Johnson reflects on “a holy vision / of what could be / and couldn’t be / and could have been”. 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, utilising 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.

With special guests.

Pre-sale Thu 28 May at 9am (passcode word required).
General on-sale Fri 29 May at 9am.

Doors 7pm, Show 8pm.