Also, my pics blow so I haven't written anything up, but here's a decent little catch up log on this year's shows to this point.
March 24th - Bleachers (Strange Desire)
This was our first concert of the year and our first concert at Boston's newest venue (Roadrunner). Great venue in the ilk of some of the better mid-sized theaters in the country - designed with acoustics and sightlines in mind, I couldn't find a place inside the "bowl" where you couldn't see and hear well which for a 3,500 person GA room is really impressive. Sadly, as it's a new venue, it has some hitches. The line to get in took about 45 minutes which caused us to miss the opener - some issues checking vaccine cards. However, the main act made up for it.
There was a ton to like about this show. It was the first time ever or in many, many years they had played
some of the Strange Desire deep cuts (it was a full album show). I had heard some mixed things about Bleachers coming off of COVID live but they had their fun, live edge back for this show. Jack was all over the stage, the crowd had a huge, loving, friendly energy I hadn't felt since before COVID (even in the Phoebe crowd), it was a really great feeling. There's little else like that big power energy song in a crowd full of happy people that's not like much else. Pretty strong recommend as a live show if you like their music.
Highlight:
I Wanna Get Better the breakout song of Strange Desire, is absolutely infectious and a huge builder live. Not a killer vocal but man was it fun.
April 2nd - Girl Talk
This one I was on the fence about. First, there was a Penny and Sparrow performance closer to home (a very strong recommend as a live act). Second, it was at the Royale which is functionally a nightclub and the "safe alcoves" for watching a show in the COVID area are very limited. Third...I got the last ticket before sellout. Fortune favored it though as Stubhub prices were obscenely low so I could grab a second for my girlfriend. We were able to get a fairly isolated area on the balcony as the floor was way beyond our comfort level in terms of being packed in.
It's kinda funny because it felt like I was teleported back to the late 2000s. This isn't that common with artists who were of an era to me - like James Taylor doesn't bring me back to the 70s for instance, but his mixes immediately hit that nostalgia string in my tiny little monkey brain. A lot of it were riffs or directly off of his albums, but he added in enough new mashup choices (the lead in to Just Like Heaven and then Move Your Feet later on) to get the crowd back in his hand. I do wonder if he'll do this much longer - he's definitely aiming for something different but the live show was a love letter to his late-2000s fans. Hard to choose a highlight from a DJ Set to be fair.
April 12th - Lorde and Remi Wolf
Interesting show all things considered. In many ways the Lorde fanbase has been Carly Rae'd - it's a bit smaller than it was but the remainder has such a massive passion for her as an artist that it felt pretty high energy. We were in what were probably the highest seats in the house - holding up the roof.
Remi Wolf was a huge surprise. I had been an early fan of her work and thought her whole vibe was really cool, but I did not realize the pipes that she has. She covered Crazy (by Gnarls Barkley) which took a somewhat distracted crowd into rapt attention. Linked is a clip from her
Toronto opening set if you're so inclined, but she slows it down and injects some pipes into it. Worth a flier if she's coming to town for her own show - the rest of the
setlist was her newer stuff which wasn't hugely shocking but I thought more fun live than recorded.
The Lorde portion of the set was a bit odd given the overall reception to Solar Power. It was the Solar Power tour in name, most of the songs were Solar Power songs, and I thought the crowd was receptive to them...but the Melodrama songs slap so freaking hard. The biggest responses were probably for some of those tracks: Green Light, Supercut, and The Louvre in particular. I came in a pretty big Solar Power proponent and left the same way, but man, I don't think a lot of those tracks are gonna be on future Lorde playlists. The staging was very creative and aesthetically pleasing, and I am happy to report Lorde has gotten dramatically more comfortable on stage as well. She definitely commanded attention and I thought it was a rather strong show overall. The person next to us almost got his phone thrown over the balcony by my girlfriend but beyond that....pretty swell.
Highlight: Outside of the Remi Wolf cut above, been waiting to hear
The Louvre live for years. Lucky, the full show is on Youtube. Sadly, the filmer was next to someone with a...passionate but not good voice (like me).
April 30th -
Puss N Boots (Norah Jones, Cat Popper, Sasha Dobson)
It's the kind of crowd that makes you want to quit going to concerts. Just full of entitled, self-absorbed jackasses. The first time I saw them I saw a fist fight and my friend who went with me was this close to causing a second one. It was impossible to escape - maybe their fans are just this way. Five minutes a fan asks Norah to play at his wedding the next day and it's all downhill from there. To add, the venue is new and not really conducive to good live shows in my view. The odd shape caused some band members to be blocked by other ones from all but straight on angles. The merch table, back bar, and standing bar area really cut off some of the better potential spots to watch the show from the edges. It was also oddly hot for a 50 degree spring day. With that said, Puss N Boots made the most of it. I found one clip online -
filmed sideways of a song they've placed on both a regular and Christmas EP - gives you a taste of their sound.
This is probably as loose as Norah Jones will get live - I think Cat and Sasha bring out some of her edgier comments and wry sense of humor. They all switch off drums, guitar, and I think bass as well at points with vocal duties. It's a very even show - you get the occasional Cat or Sasha solo song but the vast majority are cover songs or their own band's work. Just professional, good listening music at a very reasonable price. Tickets were under $30 and the merch was all in the sane territory as well. They had signed records for $25 and $40 (unsigned $15 and $25 I believe), good t-shirt. I think they were just fitting in some shows for fun ultimately before Norah goes on tour.
Highlight: No video of it, but they get really interesting with their covers. The Like a Virgin cover was the first time they had ever done it and it slayed. Most of their songs were off Sister which wasn't my favorite of their works, but other tracks made up for it. Norah Jones dropping a "now I'm the drummer bitches" was also up there.
May 1st - Weird Al Yankovic
Going to a show as a big, tall person is usually seen as a privilege - never really have issues seeing the stage, can be pretty much everywhere and very hard to move off a spot. Let me tell ya...not all it's cracked up to be. It's a real crap feeling sitting in a chair, being smushed up against someone you've never met, and then have the people behind you vocally complain that they can't see. Like...flat seats on the floor, can't do much about it. I shortly just moved myself out of the area to a GA Standing section and got a table to hang out at. That probably soured the mood for the opening comedian Emo Phillips. I hated that set. Humor is subjective so I'll not waste time on it but...man.
Anyway, Weird Al. I hadn't seen a Weird Al show before. My mother really dislikes Weird Al and I had never really listened to him until recently. Minus the people who didn't like me as a body, the rest of the crowd was great. I haven't seen that few phones in a place where it wasn't asked in many many years which really helped the atmosphere he was trying to set. His
setlist was all deeper cuts except for the encore but I thought he did a really good job of picking a good variety and it had the upside of having some of our group's favorites in there (Skipper Dan, The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota, The Night Santa
Up next is Spoon on Wed, I'm still a bit wary, hoping to get on the rail, but definitely do not want to be crushed or bumped in to.
