The National Parks Tour
National Parks across the country have Covid era-induced cabin fever to thank for a sudden surge in visitors from Yosemite to Yellowstone, Glacier to Acadia. The other National Parks surge? The growing popularity of the Provo-born indie-folk band by the same name. Trade visitorship for listenership: The National Parks’ latest single, “Angels,” which dropped September 7, 2022, saw more than one million streams in its first six days after release.
The National Parks the band is more than a cheeky nod to its founding members’ surnames. In every lyric and melody since their 2013 debut album, Brady Parks from Denver, Colorado (guitar and lead vocals), wife Megan Taylor Parks from Draper, Utah (fiddle and vocals), Sydney Macfarlane from Kaysville, Utah (keyboards and vocals), and Cam Brannelly from Draper, Utah (drums) have embodied the hook of their most well-known hit, “As We Ran”: 'Cause we belong here with the Great Tetons.
And belong they do. The group’s Utah-grounded sense of exploration and adventure extends past their great outdoors music videos, filmed on location, (“Wildflower” at Bryce, “Monsters of the North” at Zions, “Angels” at Grand Teton) and deep into their musical stylings. Their fourth and most recent album, Wildflower, sheds its predecessors’ folksy overtures to embrace the freedom of the wild, wild Intermountain West. Like the eponymous wildflowers, each track blooms where it is planted, from the electric “Horizon,” to the dreamy, acoustic “Daze,” to the sung-around-the campfire “Painted Sky.”
Nearly every track invokes the wild: coyote calls, tall trees, open skies, seas of stars, desert winds, and blue moons. Omnipresent, too, is a reverence and awe for the beauty of the Earth – Ooh I can't explain, I see it all around me / Ooh it's in my veins, I feel it so profoundly / Beautiful world, it's a beautiful world. (“Mother Nature,” Track 7 on Wildflower).
The National Parks, ever on the rise since their 2016 crowning as Utah's "Band of the Year" by Salt Lake City Weekly magazine, are currently on tour supporting Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors and Judah & The Lion. But look no further than the lyrics of the recently-released “Angels” to know that no matter where the Wildflower tour and future expeditions may take them, The National Parks’ home will always be in the red sandstone canyons of Southern Utah:
We were swaying in the firelight to the sound of coyote calls
Our silhouettes like giants dancing on Zion canyon walls
We climbed up where the angels land
You looked right at home then you took my hand
I thought hey, I'mma tell our kids about this someday
—Mykal Urbina (The National Parks fall tour continues across the country through October 22.)
