Ops Director Maddie Harris shares some thoughts from day 3 of Boston Calling 2018

The crowd on the third day was a mix of people: those who were prepared vs. those who had to wrap themselves in plastic to avoid the rain. I was the latter. While some chose to just bust arm and head holes through garbage bags, I was gifted a white hooded poncho by a nice Canadian man who probably didn’t know the meaning of a white hood in the United States. It was also a mix of those who were there to see the headliner (Eminem), and those who were there to see literally any other act besides Eminem.

I was freezing. Somehow in less than 24 hours Boston turned from a 90-degree inferno to a 50-degree overcast purgatory. I sought refuge in the arena which housed comedians today. It was the first time in the two years I’ve been to Boston Calling that I had stepped foot in the arena and it seems other people had the same idea. The seats were filled to the brim for even the lesser known comedians. That being said, the weather did not stop everyone from enjoying the day. Nor did it stop some artists from enjoying the performances of their fellow musicians. I anxiously watched as Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes was slowly approached by more and more fans at the end of Dirty Projectors set.

“It also solidified Boston Calling as a true, legitimate festival that deserves hype and recognition nationally.”

If there was one good thing about the abysmal weather it was that it kept people’s behavior in line. No more blatant groping, no more drunken stumbles across the field. In fact, the weather happened to bring people closer together (mostly just to huddle for warmth, but I’m trying to make this more heartwarming). People offered blankets and ponchos, people moved out of the way so the shorter people of the world could see, but also people sang along to The Decemberists, who fully embraced the weather their name evokes. In contrast, Alvvays’ beachy sound helped the festival goers by the red stage forget about the gloomy clouds and feel more as though we were experiencing the late spring weather May 27th usually brings.

Overall, Boston Calling improved from last year. Although the musical lineup from 2017 was a dream come true for me, improved logistics and amenities for 2018 proved that Boston Calling’s transition to Harvard Athletic Complex was the right call. It also solidified Boston Calling as a true, legitimate festival that deserves hype and recognition nationally.

Perfect Weather for The Decemberists | Boston Calling 2018

Ops Director Maddie Harris shares some thoughts from day 2 of Boston Calling 2018

I could already tell it was going to be a long day as the muggy air loomed over us and the only exciting musical prospect for me was St. Vincent (whose set was hours away). As I reluctantly slathered on the free sunscreen by the ID check tent, I locked eyes on the pierogi vendor. Pierogis, which are usually little pillows of starchy goodness, went down my throat like hot rocks. I was immediately rendered upset and uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I persisted. I wised up and brought my own water bottle today, so I could refill it instead of shelling out $2 every time I wanted enough water to keep me away from total dehydration. This helped a little.

“Is BROCKHAMPTON not just a boyband with edgier music?”

My feet had formed blisters from the first day of the festival, so I took every opportunity to sit down on the hot astroturf and get covered with the little bits of tar. This later became a point of shared grievance between myself and Jim, the operator of El Pelon Taqueria, whom the team interviewed today. In exchange for the interview, Jim generously gave us each a rice and bean plate; which, again, went down my throat like hot pebbles. The team dragged our bodies (which were having a hard time stomaching all the food), to the blue stage to see Daniel Caesar. His soothing voice aided digestion and soon enough we were on our feet again getting (sometimes reluctant) people to interview for our podcasts.

As we navigated through the crowd, we started to notice the absurd amount of people nearly convulsing at the amount of excitement they felt about seeing BROCKHAMPTON up next on the blue stage. Orange jumpsuits and BROCKHAMPTON merch spattered the crowd (composed mostly of young, white people) which made me think, “is BROCKHAMPTON not just a boyband with edgier music?” Others agreed, especially when considering the recent sexual controversy facing band member Ameer Vann. The phrase “I’d rather watch Harry Styles fart on stage than listen to one BROCKHAMPTON song,” was thrown around a time or two. Sure enough, Vann did not appear on stage. As a matter of fact, this was BROCKHAMPTON’s first appearance without him; an emotional performance ensued (I think, not sure. I was at St. Vincent). Pitchfork and Stereogum were among the first to report their Boston Calling performance as a new leaf for the band, as Vann is no longer associated. An audience member also allegedly broke a limb at this performance. Could this be symbolic of the band’s pain without Vann? Probably not, they’re just a boyband after all.

Is BROCKHAMPTON Not Just Another Boyband? | Boston Calling 2018

Ops Director Maddie Harris shares some thoughts from day 1 of Boston Calling 2018

The day started out with the sounds of Charly Bliss echoing from the will call line as we rushed to get to Big Thief before enough people over the height of 5’9” got in the way of my 5’4” perspective point. Although Big Thief’s tunes were cool, the 90 degree heat would soon take over most of my thoughts, except one: WHERE ARE THE DOGS.

“My body, on the edge of a heat stroke, gladly accepted the free frozen yogurt gifted to us by a tall Scandinavian woman…”

Of course there were a concerning lack of dogs at the festival itself, but what I was really searching for was IKEA’s debut of their very own veggie dog. We began to battle the heat and dust to make our way to the IKEA Activation Tent where the coveted dog resided. My body, on the edge of a heat stroke, gladly accepted the free frozen yogurt gifted to us by a tall Scandinavian woman I exclusively referred to as Mrs. IKEA, my guardian angel.

After the dogs were ingested and water pumped into my body, I began to feel like a human again. Even though the breeze brought pollen and dust directly into my corneas, I swear it felt heavenly. As the sun moved across the sky I began to worry less about getting a sunburn and more about sitting down and listening to the music. Still coated in a thin layer of sweat, I was able to sit down in the compacted grass just in time for Maggie Rogers. As she paraded across the stage her sounds were able to transport me right back to 2017.

As the night went on, there was a strong correlation to people’s heightened lack of respect for personal space and the increasing number of beer cans strewn across the ground. The older crowd migrated away from Paramore at the Blue Stage to a more mellow performance from The National. Maggie Rogers again took to the stage to perform a duet with The National for “I Need My Girl.” The ferris wheel started to light up in tune to the music as people reached for their significant others to round off the day with some heavy PDA. The crowd got a bit more rowdy as The Killers took to the stage to perform the millennial anthem of “Mr. Brightside.” As much as we enjoyed getting nostalgic to the 2004 mega-hit, we promptly got the hell out of the festival to secure an Uber that didn’t cost any of us to sell one of our kidneys so we could recover for the next day.

Where Are the Dogs? | Boston Calling 2018

It was a quieter Friday night than usual for the The Sinclair, the Harvard Square venue which typically is a commotion of sound, as people all gathered inside to see Lady Lamb perform. The New England born artist had sold out the venue rather quickly after announcing the tour in support of her new album, 

. Dubbed the “Living Room Tour”, it was designed to be held in fan’s houses with crowds of only 30-40 people. Despite The Sinclair being a far cry from the living rooms that the majority of the shows on this tour occupied, this concert proved to be one of the most intimate and emotional shows I have ever attended.

, delivering soft, folky songs ripe with poetic lyrics and emotion. Standing by himself with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a single blue light shining down on him, it was easy to feel as though he was in fact performing in a living room–as so many of the other shows on the tour were actually held. He would occasionally take a break from his songs to try to engage the audience, not so much as a performing artist, but more as a friend. Favored topics included the weather, stories from the tour so far, and tidbits about the songs that were on his newest EP, 

 Before I knew it, his set was over, and his sweet and unassuming voice was signing off and introducing the main act: Lady Lamb herself.

Accompanied by only 3 instruments–an acoustic and a flamenco guitar, and a banjo–Lady Lamb took the stage. She successfully incorporated all 3 of her major albums into the show, even though the tour was designed to fit the acoustic and live nature of 

. Starting off with a song from her first studio album, 

 she managed to capture the full attention and emotions of the audience from just the very first lyrics of the fan favorite song, “Regarding Ascending the Stairs”. I had never heard an audience be so quiet during or in between songs at a concert, a true testament to the power of the songs she performed that night. I was most in awe over her ability to take her songs, strip them down, and then gracefully transform them into an even more intense, emotional, and intimate story, so that they felt just as new and raw as they did the first time I had ever listened to them.

She was successful in connecting emotionally with her audience, as was evident by the rhythmic stomps during “Heaven Bent” and the room full of voices that accompanied her in singing “Aubergine”. Being an acoustic tour allowed the audience to not be distracted by extra production, instruments, or even extra band members on stage, and focus entirely on her performance. All of this gave the feeling of being in a smaller or more personal venue, such as a living room.

Toward the end of the show, she took some time to talk about the concept of the album and the tour, which she had previously explained to me in an 

 earlier this year. In addition to the idea behind the album, she also focused on the need to be kind, compassionate, and above all else, tender. “Make an effort to stay sensitive and tender instead of shutting down,” she warned, as “there’s so much fear [in the world] that can manifest into aggression if not treated with compassion.” Adding that the more sensitive she is, the more she attracts like-minded people, and the more her world flourishes and becomes beautiful. Which, evidently, is what she created for us that night; a wonderful world of sensitive, emotional, and tender warriors.

Lady Lamb @ The Sinclair

Aly Spaltro, better known under her stage name of 

, as well as her Living Room Tour that comes to 

Thanks so much for taking the time out of your day to talk with me, I know you’re probably very busy preparing for your tour. I was actually going to start off with talking about the tour, since it is a little unconventional being that most of the shows are in living rooms. Can you tell me a little bit about how that came to be or what you’re most excited for about that?

Yeah, I got the idea after playing a couple house shows around New York throughout the years and had really memorable experiences doing that where—you know— I was playing to just 50 to 70 people completely unplugged and I just love the intimacy of it. I went on tour with some friends and I was asking them if they’ve played any living room shows and they recommended to focus exclusively on living room shows. They said they’ve done a couple of tours that was and really loved the experience. And I just knew that the new record I made would be really conducive for small rooms and luckily the company wanted to work with me on booking the tour and we got a bunch of fan submissions, so essentially I’m playing in fan’s homes, or art galleries, or places that they run after hours—that sort of thing.

Very cool, that must mean that a lot of the booking and logistics for this tour would directly involve fans and those who admire your work. How has that been different or interesting interacting with them so much, as opposed to a venue or company? Did you enjoy this more?

Yeah, it’s definitely really exciting to learn who the hosts are and see them inviting their friends on the Facebook event pages. You know, I’ve never really done anything like this before and I’m really glad to involve people who have the room to host the show in their house, as opposed to a traditional venue—which I also love—but obviously this is just a very different type of tour.

Right of course, you mentioned that you think the new EP is conducive to having a more intimate set, so I kind of wanted to talk about your lyrics. You have a pretty expressive and poetic way of telling stories and such and I’ve always wondered, personally, about your song writing process. What do you find is running through your mind when you write?

Well, it’s tough to pin down exactly how it works, but I always write lyrics first, and usually, an idea will come to me in a phrase and I’ll write it down and collect phrases overtime. Sometimes, I’ll write a whole poem and a verse and I’ll set it right to music right then and there, or shortly after. I wrote the songs for this [album] in May and June [2016], and I was recording by the first day of August. So for me, as a process, it was a little but speedier than usual. But in a way, I really appreciated it because it felt more urgent. The songs all came to me in a pretty short amount of time in a burst and I was able to record them all in 10 days. And you know, for me the lyrics are the most important thing, so the music has always been a vehicle for the message.

Yeah, because I’ve noticed on this EP the lyrics kind of take center stage, whereas before on previous albums the production was a bit more intensive. Was that intentional because of the lyrics or did you have an idea behind this album that you wanted to express through that?

Yeah it was definitely intentional. What was not intentional was that I was sitting down to write for my next full length, full band record, but I was noticing that the songs I was writing—they just weren’t fitting their way into the structure that I was trying to make them fit into. For example, I was trying to write drums and full arrangements for a couple of the songs and noticing that it just wasn’t quite what the song wanted, so it was intentional to decide to strip the songs back and try to let them breathe and speak for themselves with very little accompaniment or arrangement. And then like I said, I recorded them live too, so mostly what you’re hearing is just my voice with my guitar or a banjo with maybe just a couple of things here and there for dynamics. But all in all, pretty sparse.

So obviously, you’re starting off tour now. I actually saw you a few years back supporting The Decemberists in Portland, Maine. I was wondering what you’re looking forward to most about headlining your own tour or what you may have in store for us?

I’m most excited to just be playing the way I’m playing. I haven’t toured with just acoustic instruments ever, so this is the most stripped down I’ll ever be touring. You know, a lot of the tours I’ve done on electric guitar, but now a lot of these shows don’t even have amplification. So I’m really excited for the intimacy of that: for the connections, for the lack of a boundary between myself and the audience who will most likely just be sitting on the floor—you know—right there in front of me. So yeah I’m just really looking forward to not having that barrier for most of these shows. There’s a show in the Boston area at the Sinclair so that will be a little bit different, but that’s also the biggest one I’m doing, which I’m also really looking forward to.

So to wrap things up, I just have a question or two left. I was wondering about the title of the album, 

. What does it mean, or is there a certain type of audience you think you were trying to encapsulate there?

Well, I have noticed over time that the people who connect to my music are emotional people and aren’t afraid of their emotions—and they’re sensitive. And I love that. I love that because I’m the same type of person. So I think that the music draws in like-minded, sensitive people and I find that my closest friends are similar, too. So, the title came to me when I was on the telephone with one of my best friends walking through Manhattan, and she was going through a really rough time. So she told me that she had just bought an impulse ticket to go to Paris by herself and I was so proud of her because, to me, it felt like she was showing courage even though she was really terrified. And so I called her a tender warrior just out of the blue. And then on my walk, I started wondering about what that meant to me and I realized that a lot of my friends are that type of person that, even through difficulty, they care enough about taking care of themselves that they’re courageous, and sensitive, and emotional. It just made perfect sense. It all came together. So while I was writing the songs, right off the bat that was the title. And I would use that title to create this kind of club that fans of mine would collect under—and even merch for it—so we could all be able to spot each other out. Creating like a little tiny community. So yeah, that’s what the records about and what the tour’s all about.

Thank you so much to Aly for taking the time to interview with 

 of WRBB, and thank you to Morgan at Mom + Pop Music for coordinating.

Jan 14th | Living Room Tour | Brevard, NC

Jan 15th | Living Room Tour | Atlanta, GA

Jan 17th | Living Room Tour | Jacksonville, FL

Jan 18th | Living Room Tour | Gainesville, FL

Jan 20th | Living Room Tour | Nashville, TN

Jan 21st | Living Room Tour | Louisville, KY

Jan 22nd | Living Room Tour |Champaign, IL

Jan 26th | Living Room Tour | Milwaukee, WI

Jan 27th | Living Room Tour | Cleveland, OH

Jan 28th | Living Room Tour | Detroit, MI

Jan 29th | Living Room Tour | Toronto, Canada

Jan 31st | Living Room Tour | Manchester, VT

Feb 2nd | Living Room Tour | Harpswell, ME

Feb 6th | Living Room Tour | Providence, RI

Feb 7th | The Parlor Room at Signature | Northampton, MA

Feb 9th | The Ballroom at The Outer Space | Hamden, CT

Feb 10th | The Sinclair | Cambridge, MA *

Feb 11th | The Knitting Factory | Brooklyn, NY

Feb 13th | Living Room Tour | Philadelphia, PA

Feb 23rd | Living Room Tour | Brooklyn, NY

Mar 1st | Living Room Tour | New Orleans, LA

Mar 10th | Bootleg Theatre | Los Angeles, CA

Mar 11th | The Chapel | San Francisco, CA

Mar 12th | Living Room Tour | Petaluma, CA

Mar 14th | Living Room Tour | Portland, OR

Mar 15th | Living Room Tour | Vancouver, Canada

Mar 16th | Living Room Tour | Seattle, WA

Mar 19th | Living Room Tour | Missoula, MT

Mar 21st | Living Room Tour | Salt Lake City, UT

Mar 25th | Living Room Tour | Russellville, AR

Q&A with Lady Lamb

His first album released since “Mala” in 2013, Devendra Banhart returns to us to sing us into a warm lull with his new album “Ape in Pink Marble.” The album opens with “Middle Names,” a sleepy melody that has an intense longing disguised under its deceptively simple sounds. This lullaby continues into “Good Time Charlie” before gradually picking up only slightly into “Jon Lends a Hand.”

Banhart’s work includes heavy international influences. Being Venezuelan-American himself, he frequently uses his heritage to enhance his work and even sings in other languages such as Spanish and German. Although “Ape in Pink Marble” is entirely sung in English, the multinational feel is still very palpable. The gentle guitar strumming is a bit reminiscent of traditional Spanish technique. This being said, modern production is nothing unfamiliar to Banhart, the sixth track on the album, “Fig in Leather” as well as the final track, “Celebration,” use synth to create an airy, dreamlike feel. In fact, this entire album is trance like.

Intricate and layered, there is something new to hear in every listen of this album. Whether it be a subtle chord progression, or a hidden meaning behind a deceptively simple lyric, Banhart has the incredible ability to hide complexities within the confines of an easy going melody. Being inherently artistic, Banhart succeeds in being able to convey feelings and emotions through a wide variety of channels in his music; his voice, his inflection, his melodies all work together to capture the listener’s mind. While not being objectively as catchy or popular as his previous album, be prepared for “Ape in Pink Marble” to haunt you just the same.

Recommended listening times include, but are not limited to, a hazy & lazy Sunday afternoon, after a first date, while in a coffee shop after dusk, etc. However, it is not suggested that you listen to this album before you go out on a weekend night, or while trying to feel upbeat or pumped up in general. Overall, “Ape in Pink Marble” is an excellent listen if you’re in the right mood and Devendra Banhart once again shows the world his immense talent and emotional insight in a way impossible to truly describe or recreate.

Madison Harris