Get to know 21-year-old indie folk artist behind the enchanting new EP, 

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With a sound that’s intimate and haunting all at once, 21-year-old Carolyn Flaherty, known simply as Carol, has quickly established herself as one of the most exciting new artists in the Boston music scene. In 2018, Carol made her official debut with “Lilies,” and intimate ballad wrote when she was 16 that currently has over 32,000 streams on Spotify. In March, she released her EP 

(produced by Ruben Radlauer), an etherial and ominous collection of songs that explores the complicated power balance within relationships, and the impact we leave on others’ lives through the smallest actions. I caught up with Carol to learn more about the EP, her creative process, and the power being vulnerable in front of others.

I think probably when I was 12. I’ve always been writing, even I was really young; I used to write plays and stuff for my class in second grade and be like, “Let’s perform them!” I loved music ‘cause it was, for me, the most hard-hitting of any kind of arts because it’s just so primal and emotional. It’s the easiest way to get an emotion across to a widespread audience. I was thinking that and when I was younger, so I was like, “But how do I do it? Of course, I need to play guitar!” So I started playing guitar and then started writing [songs] from there.

What was your reaction to seeing your debut single “Lilies” blow up on Spotify?

It was cool! I try to stay away from looking into statistics and stuff, because it makes me feel crazy. But I really like the response we’re getting. I had a hard time like with that song for a while because I wrote it when I was so young, and I just felt like it’s really naive. Like even in the harmonies – if we’re going to talk about the music sense – and that general melody, I just feel like it’s so immature compared to things that I was then exposed to after. But the traction just shows me that people aren’t thinking that hard about it [laughs]. They want something that’s relatable or real, and I definitely felt that when I wrote it.

You’ve re-recorded “Lilies” several times since writing it five years ago. What was it like revisiting it once again while also recording much different material for the EP?

I personally think it’s really cool that I still felt a darkness even when I was younger [laughs]. I don’t think I’m very dark of a person, but I think my music’s still like that. But yeah, I think that was really interesting for me. “Lilies” is very defensive and it’s just so different than something like “Castle,” where I was really, really in love and desperate. But that’s what happens I guess when you’re growing and you get rid of those boundaries, because you have to if you want to grow.

That’s interesting you say that, because one thing that stuck out to me was that “Lilies,” like you were saying, is defensive, whereas “Castle” opens with, “Are you ready to receive my love?” The themes are similar, but the power dynamics have shifted.

Yeah, for sure. “Lilies” is about relationships, but it’s not about romantic relationships as much as 

 very obviously is. It’s interesting how you give power to yourself, and that willingness to be in love or that willingness to create a boundary. It’s up to you, really. Of course people influence you and change your perspective and can teach you so much and change your life, but at the same time, you’re the one who makes that choice of how they’re going to affect you.

Why do you gravitate towards a darker sound in your music?

I think I’ve always thought that [sound] was powerful. In my real life, I feel like I’m very happy, so it’s interesting that my music can be very dark. But you can’t have one without the other. Maybe it’s less of an aesthetic choice and more a practical choice, but by putting that all into my music, I live a little bit lighter [laughs]. But I think mostly it’s power, if I can be honest. That dark atmosphere can be very powerful or touching to a lot of people.

How did you decide on the EP’s five tracks?

I picked them basically because they were my newest ones. I was in a band last year that I had a lot of material written for. I loved it, but then I couldn’t do that anymore because I just couldn’t really write for it at some point. I was in such an internal place, I just couldn’t even really figure out how to write with another person. It was really hard for me for some reason. I think everything that I wrote for this EP started last May I think, and then I wrote basically all summer and was, like, alone [laughs], and then I finished it in the fall. I picked those ones because vocally, they felt the most honest. I think whenever I feel like I’m really singing a song honestly, I usually gravitate towards that ’cause it’s much easier to sing.

You wrote these songs in an isolated place, but there ended up being lots of collaboration on this project. How has that experience fed back into your creative output?

It’s really changed my entire perspective. It’s opened up my trust a lot more, and I’ve been able to have more honest conversations with everybody in my life. When I am collaborating on something that I find really personal, it just opens up the discussion of vulnerability and what other people view that as, and then they put that in into their own portions of this whole “Carol” adventure. As Noname said, “The only way we’re going to heal the world is through vulnerability.”

So what’s next? Where do you see yourself going a year from now, five years, ten years – or even, like, next week?

Oh my gosh…well I always have trouble seeing into next week, so [laughs]. I definitely have a dream of some new album that is not written currently. I’m still going through that process. Like I don’t know if I could even produce something right now; I don’t know if I’ve learned enough to share. I’m definitely still writing and stuff, but I’m always challenging myself to write something more honest – challenging myself to explore something that is new.

Q&A with Carol

It’s weird seeing your name on Wikipedia. It’s even weirder seeing it on the Wikipedia page for one of your idols’ new albums. And it’s completely mortifying to be on that page as the one critic who gave said album a negative review. That’s 

 back in June. In summary: I adore the Smiths, but I didn’t adore Marr’s album, so I wrote about it in a 

 and then a presumably bored Marr fan whipped up a passive-aggressive paragraph about me on Wikipedia. My first thought upon discovering my newfound infamy was, “That explains all the hate emails

” followed by, “I guess I’ll never get to write about Johnny Marr ever again.” Well, all apologies Marr fans, ‘cause apparently there’s a round two: I got to see Marr live at Paradise Rock Club, and I 

 get thrown out by the belt straps when they saw my name on the press list.

So how was it? Luckily, it wasn’t bad, but I’m not about to retract any previously stated opinions, either. There were arguably more lulls than peaks throughout Marr’s 20-song set, as the room exploded any time he played a Smiths song but then died down whenever he played his solo work. That pattern was apparent from the very start: Marr opened the show with 

single “The Tracers,” and the crowd cheered like any crowd would for the first song. But then he followed it up with the Smiths classic “Bigmouth Strikes Again,” and 

when the room of hipster college kids/cool parents lost their minds. Phones were out, people were singing along, hands were in the air, the whole nine yards. Like clockwork, all of the Smiths songs Marr played proved to be the biggest highlights: “The Headmaster’s Ritual” was energizing and menacing, “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” was a fantastic encore, and ‘You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby’ was a welcome deep cut for die-hard Smith fans. As someone who wasn’t even a thought when the Smiths were gigging around, these moments were particularly fun to see.

Now, if only these songs were in the set, it would’ve easily been a great show. But alas, there was also the solo material to get through. As I knew very well going into it, this part of Marr’s long career is an unfortunately mixed bag. To be fair, I enjoyed solo songs like “Day In Day Out” and “Hi Hello,” which successfully captured the youthful jangle of Marr’s early work. But other cuts like “Hey Angel,” a song that plays like a dad rock band ripping guitar solos for five minutes, or especially “New Dominions” with its weird trance beat-and-drum machine, felt aimless and uninspiring, especially when sandwiched between post-punk classics. It was also during these songs that the crowd definitely became more tacit as they patiently waited for Johnny to break out his best Morrissey impression. The moment that really summed up the night for me was with a woman in the balcony section. At the start of “Walk Into The Sea,” a seven-minute slog off 

she let out a big “WOOOO,” then turned to presumably her husband and said, “I don’t think I know this one.” So from what I at least observed, the crowd was there for the same reason I was: the hits.

While the songs were hit-or-miss, there’s no doubt that Marr, like anyone who’s been playing music for decades, knows how to command a stage. Some of the most memorable points of the night came when he was cracking jokes with the crowd, schmoozing with the ladies in the front row during solos, and just being a confident, shit-grinning rock icon. I particularly loved when he finished a song and immediately called out some dude on his phone by saying, “You better be texting the words ‘This is badass,’ ‘cause it was.” Even when select songs didn’t hold up, Marr never once seemed phased or out of his element and knew how to keep the crowd interested.

Even though my thoughts on Marr’s solo work haven’t changed at all post-concert, it was still worth going just to see some of my favorite Smiths tunes played live for the first time. Heaven knows 

a reunion that’s never going to happen and Morrissey’s becoming harder to love with every passing xenophobic diatribe, so this really is the next best thing.

Johnny Marr channels the Smiths at Paradise Rock Club

The album is far from reinventing the wheel, but is still a well-polished listen that’ll go down easy.

I tried making music with my roommates exactly one time. We were all pretty decent musicians, and we certainly had the intentions to make something meaningful. But over the course of a couple hours and a questionable amount of booze, what resulted was a campy little ditty best described as “chipmunk disco” that had at least one backwards message endorsing Satan. We never finished that song, but even if we did, none of us were willing to credit ourselves on it.

The point is, just because you live with talented people doesn’t mean your apartment will be the next Brill Building. Sometimes, your collective talents lead to weird disco Devil songs. Brooklyn’s own Future Generations, meanwhile, seem to have a lot better luck living, playing, and touring together. The indie-pop quintet split songwriting duties like they split washing dishes, and so far, they’ve already gotten some decent results: The sparkly piano bop ‘Stars,’ from their self-titled 2016 debut, is currently just shy of 11 million streams on Spotify. That’s definitely one way to help with rent. Now, the band has put out 

their summer-y sophomore effort that dropped right when summer ended, but nevertheless still has plenty of warm, upbeat earworms for any remaining days in the sun. The album is far from reinventing the wheel, but is still a well-polished listen that’ll go down easy.

The opening swell in intro track ‘Stranger,’ with its airy synths and shotgun sampler snares, tells you pretty much everything you need to know about where this record’s going to go. This album is all about bubbly, well-textured, dreamy love songs that are equal parts hipster millennial and 80s nostalgia. In other words, it’s your typical 2010’s indie-pop record, meaning if that’s never been your jam, you best keep moving. If that 

 your type of music, then you’ll probably find a good helping of tracks to add to your “indie chill” playlists. Title-track ‘Landscape’ reels you in with an unexpected Motown drum beat and a chorus that is what all good pop choruses should be: easy to learn, easy to sing along to, and easy to get stuck in your head. ‘All the Same’ serves as the record’s quick-and-catchy lead single, with chirping synths and jangly guitars meshing together to make a bright, reverb-y soundscape, giving the dynamic space for vocalist Eddie Gore to go back and forth between soft tenderness and exciting intensity. Both ‘Out Loud’ and ‘Take Me There’ keep things mid-tempo and groovy thanks to their slightly more minimal beats, giving the listener a little breathing room after the record’s first half of big, swelling walls of sound.

proves to be a good, fun record that shows how much these roomies enjoy making music together. If there was anything to gripe about, it’s that it definitely isn’t anything you haven’t heard before, and especially by the last couple tracks, all the keyboards, drum samples, and hooks start blending into each other. In other words (and because I’m a snarky music writer who can’t resist a good zinger), the album’s greatest fault is that it’s “All The Same” after a certain point. Granted, that doesn’t make the record 

for me personally – these are breezy, easy-going indie pop songs whose reason for existing is to be breezy and easy-going, so job well done in that respect. It may not be a record meant to digest in one sitting, but sprinkle these tracks in a playlist or two, and good vibes should be waiting.

Future Generations releases full-length ‘Landscape’

Lead Editor Rob Steiner recaps the final day of Boston Calling 2018

Considering that Boston Calling is still a pretty young festival, one of the currently ongoing goals is finding an identity distinct enough to compete in the inflating number of festivals every year. While the lineup, space, and activities helps with that, it might be the most New England thing ever to start the weekend sweating your ass off in 90-degree heat, and end it shivering underneath your poncho and four layers of clothing. You don’t get that at Coachella.

For me personally, the change of weather offered a much-needed break from the heat, especially since my skin was about to enter uncharted shades of red if I did another full day of direct sunlight. In fact, I personally wasn’t exactly in pristine physical shape by Sunday: I was sunburnt in places that didn’t even get sun, my legs and back felt like they were matching my spiritual age of 75, and my neck was tight from all the head banging the night before (thanks, Jack White). But in reality, if your body isn’t ready to collapse like a Jenga set by the end of a music festival, then you probably didn’t do the festival right. I loved running around catching as many sets as I could, camping out for hours, toughing out the weather, and taking in as much as I could all three days. Aches and all, I wouldn’t have done anything differently.

That said, I was very sore and very sleep deprived on Sunday, so while I was still moving around, I was moving much more slowly. I rolled in just in time to catch the tail end of Zola Jesus’ set, whose electronic, goth-pop sound made for a pretty intense and emotional day opener. It would’ve been a cool set to see a night in an intimate venue – but considering they performed the middle of the day, outside, and to a crowd of burned out festival-goers, the show didn’t really land as well as it probably could have under ideal circumstances. Next up was the ever-evolving Dirty Projectors, who are just starting their first tour since their 2017 self-titled album. Things started off a little shaky due to technical difficulties involving the bass player (pro-tip: if your instrument is active, it’s probably the batteries), and the band seemed to still be getting comfortable with the new songs off their upcoming album, Lamp Lit Prose. Luckily, David Longstreth and co. were much better with the old, pre-nasty breakup material, nailing songs like “Impregnable Question” and the vocally acrobatic “Beautiful Mother.”

“Hearing the lush, reverberated harmonies on ‘White Winter Hymnal’ and the bittersweet musings of ‘Helplessness Blues’ was not only perfect rain music, but it made standing in front of the stage for hours drenched in water completely worth it.”

After that, I managed to crawl my way from the Blue Stage over to the Red Stage for Alvvays, whose shimmering dream-pop probably would’ve been better suited for Friday or Saturday’s weather, but still made for a fun, chill mid-day set. In fact, “chill” is probably the best word to describe the rest Sunday, which basically consisted of me grabbing an IKEA veggie dog and a Belgian waffle and parking at the Blue Stage for the rest of the day. The ragers happening at Taylor Bennett and Cousin Stizz’s Red Stage sets looked fun, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t really looking to get swallowed in a mosh pit of high school frat bros that day. Instead, I was more about Julien Baker, whose raw, heart-wrenching ballads were almost too perfect for standing in the rain on a cold, cloudy day.

The Decemberists brought the energy back up with their campy modern-indie shanties about miners, Ben Franklin, and how everything is awful (their words). A highlight of the weekend was definitely watching the band go full cheese with “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” complete with choreography, polka jams, and a giant inflatable whale for good measure. The evening capped off with Fleet Foxes, who unfortunately played to one of the weekend’s thinner crowds, likely due to a combo of rain, the Celtics game, and people getting in position for Eminem. All those people missed out, honestly, because the Seattle-bred band played one of the best sets of the weekend, blasting both old and new songs with masterful precision, often times without even stopping. Hearing the lush, reverberated harmonies on “White Winter Hymnal” and the bittersweet musings of “Helplessness Blues” was not only perfect rain music, but it made standing in front of the stage for hours drenched in water completely worth it. The last time I saw the band was in 2011 back home in Berkeley, California – that also happened to be the first concert I ever went to – so to finally see them again in 2018 and feel like nothing has changed was a really special thing to experience.

So there you have it. I took off before Eminem, so sorry to the people dying to hear my hot take on that. But from everything else I did this weekend, I’ll say that it was a fun time all around. The lineup wasn’t as diverse as last year’s, but that’s probably my only major complaint. The whole weekend otherwise ran smoothly, organizers ironed out the kinks from last year, and it now feels like Calling couldn’t happen anywhere else except at the Athletic Complex. So good work, Calling – good music, good food, good company.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go slab some aloe vera on my face and hibernate until next week.

Everything Was Beautiful, and Everything Hurt | Boston Calling 2018

Lead Editor Rob Steiner recaps day 2 of Boston Calling 2018

Alright, look: I realize that in order to properly review and recap a festival, one has to actually walk around and do stuff at said festival that day. Go to the different stages, try the food, explore all the fun odds and ends of the three-day wonderland of music, booze, and IKEA lounge areas – all to ensure a comprehensive, well-rounded summary for all the readers attending the festival vicariously through me.

“There’s truly a strange beauty to watching someone get thrown across a sea of people, and the garage rockers’ indescribable mix of underground, punk, and psychedelia made the open Harvard field feel like a sweaty basement show.”

I didn’t do any of that on Saturday. I had like a sandwich and a Coke the whole day (BUT s/o to the Smoke Shop for a solid brisket sandwich), I didn’t lounge around with the IKEA DJs, and I missed Natalie Portman’s Boujee existential indie films. I was there for one specific person: John Anthony Gillis, otherwise known as Jack White. A little context: I’ve been a huge White Stripes fan since I was 12 or 13, basically when I discovered that the dude who wrote “Seven Nation Army” 1. had a ton of other, even better songs and 2. could hold his own against

. But as luck would have it, I started following the Stripes right when they broke up in 2011, and since then it’s been

 that a reunion isn’t happening any time soon. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll never see a Stripes show in my lifetime, but I’ll damned if I wasn’t front row for the next best thing.

Since I camped out for Jack, I pretty much hovered between the Green and Red Stages all day, which ended being an entire day of rock bands tearing up the place. While yes, probably the biggest gripe about Calling’s lineup this year is that it’s very rock-oriented and pretty same-y – which is valid – as someone who 

primarily a rock fan, it didn’t end up bothering me as much as it might’ve bothered other people. Besides, I didn’t even make it to the Blue Stage, which was pretty much hip-hop central the whole day.

The acts throughout the day ended being a nice mix of old, new, crowd-pleasers, and strangeness, which made for the easiest and most entertaining time I’ve ever had camping out at a stage. Things started off with veteran pop-punkers the Menzingers, whose pop-punk spunk brought a much more energetic start to the day than Friday’s low-key early acts. The band managed to get the crowd pretty lively, but the “Most Hyped Crowd” award definitely goes to Oh Sees, who managed to start the first bona-fide mosh pit of the day. There’s truly a strange beauty to watching someone get thrown across a sea of people, and the garage rockers’ indescribable mix of underground, punk, and psychedelia made the open Harvard field feel like a sweaty basement show (though the 90-degree weather probably helped with the “sweaty” part).

After that, Rhode Island’s own Belly took things back to 1993, playing some of their dream-pop staples along with cuts from 

their first album in 23 years. Manchester Orchestra then brought the heavy, emotional goodness to the Green Stage, which was a nice contrast to Royal Blood’s bluesy, festival-ready anthems. Things got wonderfully surreal with St. Vincent, whose trademark brand of avant-garde dance-rock kept the guitar-filled day from feeling too monotone. Wearing bright orange latex and supported by her masked, bowl-cut sporting bandmates, Annie Clark knows how to both break out the hits and keep audience members on their toes, making for one of the more compelling sets of the day.

Queens of the Stone Age looked like a fun show at the Red Stage, but I honestly wasn’t paying attention at that point. I was right on the barricade at the Green Stage, waiting for the artist I had been waiting six-plus hours for – and man oh man, was it worth the wait. Backed by one of his tightest touring bands yet, Jack tore up the main stage for a nearly non-stop two hours, pulling from all corners of his sprawling career to cap off a rocking Saturday. While his new album, 

is definitely one of his most experimental and polarizing records to date, songs like “Over and Over and Over” and the jam-tastic “Corporation” translated really well in a live setting. Between his solo stuff, White Stripes songs, and even a few Raconteurs cuts here and there, the show was everything I had hoped for, ever since I was a wide-eyed, blues-loving thirteen-year-old.

The MVP for the day: I mean, come on. Jack’s obviously my pick. Even while he’s been in the rock game for a good while now, the man has proven over and over (and over) that he hasn’t lost an ounce of mojo, and has no intention of hanging it up any time soon. I lost my voice screaming along to every song, and my neck is sore from headbanging into oblivion – so all in all, that show was one for the bucket list. I promise I’ll actually do festival things on Sunday, but this day was for me. I regret nothing.

Rock’s Not Dead, Just Older and Weirder | Boston Calling 2018

Lead Editor Rob Steiner recaps day 1 of Boston Calling 2018

Back when Boston Calling moved to the Harvard Athletic Complex for the first time last year, the fest faced a simple but lofty task: prove a bigger space could work. For the most part, it succeeded in doing just that – but that’s not to say the weekend was won without some growing pains. Food ran out fast, bathrooms were a mess, and wifi and cell service was non-existent. Basically, it boiled down to festival organizers underestimating what was actually needed to keep a higher-capacity festival running smoothly, which unfortunately meant long lines and disgruntled festival goers waiting in line for food scraps.

“We’re now one day in the can, and right off the bat it seems like organizers heard peoples’ complaints and learned how to utilize the space better.”

An understandable miscalculation, all things considered. The Athletic Complex is a completely different ballgame (sorry for that) than the festival’s original grounds at the much smaller City Hall Plaza, so it’s not like there was much of a precedent. So now that there is a precedent, Calling still had their work cut out for them this year, both in putting together a good lineup and keeping people on the ground happy.

We’re now one day in the can, and right off the bat it seems like organizers heard peoples’ complaints and learned how to utilize the space better. There were more food and drink stands spread out throughout the grounds (i.e. that new “Green Monster” drink station in between the Red and Green stages definitely came in handy), bathrooms and water were easier to get to, and between the three music stages, the IKEA DJ space, and the comedy tent/Natalie Portman film extravaganza, there was pretty much always something going on.

“You’d think people would’ve left after hearing the Killers’ by far most popular song, but the band gave them plenty of reasons to stay until the end, putting on a glitzy and flashy show fit of their Vegas origins.”

So brownie points to organizers for keeping things moving and making the grounds a fun hangout spot, even in egg-cooking weather. The Friday lineup definitely leaned on the indie-rock side of things, but at least from the acts I saw, I thought the day had a good flow and built-up the energy well from the show openers to the big headliner, even with the slight lack of variety. Things started off mellow and moody with Big Thief and Perfume Genius, then the energy was brought up a slight notch with the Noname’s effortless rap jams and Maggie Roger’s upbeat electro-folk. After that, Portugal. The Man (aka “The Greatest Band in the World,” according to Beavis and Butthead) and Paramore really got the party going with both new hits and old favorites, and headliners the Killers brought it home with a, well, killer set.

Though it was clear the majority of people were there for the old hits, Brandon Flowers and co. still kept things interesting by throwing in a Tom Petty cover, having a fan play drums for a song, and in perhaps the ballsiest move I’ve seen from a headliner, opening with “Mr. Brightside.” You’d think people would’ve left after hearing the Killers’ by far most popular song, but the band gave them plenty of reasons to stay until the end, putting on a glitzy and flashy show fit of their Vegas origins.

The MVP for the day: Maggie Rogers. Not only was her set only her second performance with her new band and not only did she play her biggest hit “Alaska” only four songs in, but she also dedicated the vast majority of her set to completely new and unreleased songs. Testing out an upcoming album to an unfamiliar audience is a hell of a gamble, but luckily, it paid off: The crowd was a dance party the whole time, and Rogers and the band had the collective confidence to pull the trial-by-fire off. It was a cool and unexpected move to see so early into the day, and considering how people were chanting “Maggie” by the end of the set, it’s clear there are only good things ahead for the up-and-coming artist.

How To Overcome Growing Pains with Food and Beer | Boston Calling 2018

Even with a night of technical difficulties, Leithauser and his band didn’t let up and put on an overall solid show.

No artist in the history of music has ever stood backstage, moments before appearing to a packed audience of adoring fans, and thought to themselves, “You know what? I hope this show 

 After all, who doesn’t love a confidence-killing shakeup once in awhile, right?” That has never happened, and it probably won’t ever happen as long as humans have the capacity to possess ego and experience shame – and when it comes to musicians, ego will at least be alive and well.

Point is, every performer hopes for a good, smooth show, but no matter how much practice and heart you put in, sometimes there are forces you just can’t control that threaten to throw the whole night off-course. Hamilton Leithauser seemed to experience such forces at the Royale, but we’re not talking a broken string here or a loose cable there – this guy had the 

 thrown at him in the span of a 15-song set. Thankfully, like the cool, veteran frontman that he is, Leithauser didn’t miss a beat and made for a memorable night of old-fashioned pop rock and soaring vocal melodies

Speaking of the latter, any fan of Leithauser and his many projects of the years, from the Walkmen to his solo work to his recent inspired collaboration with Rostam Batmanglij, will tell you that the greatest thing about him is by far and away his vocals. With a range that can go from a raspy croon to a vein-popping belt in the course of a single song, Leithauser has mastered a style that confidently walks the line between early ‘60s cabaret singer and foam-mouthed punk screamer. Add that to the fact he can passionately belt it out until his neck veins bulge night after night, and it’s easy to call Leithauser one of the best singers working today. So it’s a sacrilegious travesty that his vocal mic wasn’t working for the first two songs.

I don’t blame Leithauser or his band for this mishap; they otherwise-flawlessly played openers ‘The Morning Stars’ and ‘Alexandra’ with contagious energy. A technical issue like that falls on the venue’s sound guys, who shouldn’t have let the 

 vocal mic go dead for two whole songs. Leithauser’s guitarist eventually gave him his mic, which was working perfectly, and the singer looked understandably annoyed but shrugged off the mishap quickly and gracefully. To quote the man himself, “It’s amateur night, I guess.”

It’s good the first road bump didn’t throw Leithauser off his game, because there were plenty more as the night went on. First, his guitar strap fell off, then it straight-up ripped a few songs later, and 

the strap he replaced it with came loose a few songs after that. His guitar’s loose input jack might have been the main culprit for these issues, causing it to pop and crackle every so often along with messing with the strap’s grip. These misfortunes might seem small, but any performer can tell you that little technical problems like these are enough to knock more fragile souls right on their asses. Have all of them happen to you in one set, and it can be nerve shattering.

But, like I mentioned before, these vexes didn’t phase Leithauser or his band in the slightest, as they still powered through every song with passion and exuberance. ‘Sick as a Dog’ bounced along with a melancholy groove that slowly built to the final act, which had the whole audience cathartically screaming along by the end. Crowd-favorite ‘A 1000 Times’ had the singer wailing away until he broke a sweat, which was immediately followed by the runaway hit from his Rostam team-up (thanks, 

) ‘In A Blackout.’ It was one of the best songs off Leithauser and Rostam’s 

if not one of the best songs of Leithauser’s career, so to hear it played and sung with the kind of raw, unbridled emotion you can only experience live, I instantly felt goose bumps.

As what has become customary at Hamilton’s shows, the band brought on a female guest vocalist for a couple songs, this time featuring opening act Courtney Marie Andrews. She and Leithauser traded lines on the tear-jerking 

ballad ‘1959’ as well as his newest release ‘Heartstruck (Wild Hunger),’ with Andrews filling in excellently for Angel Olson. Aside from the latter song, ‘Alexandra,’ and a couple encore songs, the rest of the set was made out of tracks from 

, which makes sense considering that it’s both Leithauser’s most recent and arguably strongest work to date. Personally, I was holding out a sliver of hope that some Walkmen songs would appear in the set – they were my very first concert way back in 2011, so call me sentimental – but it makes sense that Leithauser would rather focus on the current, wildly successful chapter in his career.

I would have honestly loved to hear the band play into the absurdly late hours of the night, but we all had to be out of there by 9:30 to make way for the DJ set afterward (or, as Leithauser put it, “The teenagers in their Maseratis are gonna party next!”) The frontman capped off the night with a tranquil solo cover of Palace Music’s ‘Trudy Dies,’ and with that, the crowd wandered out into the still-early night to make way for the Maseratis coming around the block. It wasn’t the smoothest show in the world tech-wise, but the mark of a good performer isn’t hoping and praying nothing bad will happen. It’s keeping it together and pulling through when something inevitably 

happen, and Hamilton Leithauser did just that. I left the venue with the delicate picking of ‘In A Blackout’ pattering in my head, and there really was no better song to accompany the cold, young night than that.

Hamilton Leithauser @ The Royale

Despite previous claims, the old Taylor is alive and well on her sixth album – she’s just a little more mature, slightly less focused, and a lot more pissed off.

[three_fourth]If I said to someone three or four years ago that Taylor Swift 

not be the quirky, down-to-earth, and completely genuine megastar she had made herself out to be, I would’ve been shot down – I’m sorry for this – swiftly. Fast-forward to now, and a claim like that doesn’t seem so crazy. In just the past year or so, the once-untouchable queen of pop needlessly entered some very public spats with 

, stuck her foot so far up her mouth it became a 

 for some reason. With one bombshell and snake emoji after another, Taylor’s painstakingly crafted public image – her practically patented brand of the innocent, doe-eyed victim who could always shake off the haters – split apart at the seams. For the first time in her career, the biggest pop star in the world was on the defensive.

After taking a very private year to herself and outside of the spotlight’s glare, Taylor is finally back with 

the moody follow-up to the nostalgic megahit 

and the sixth album in her impressively long career. Every Taylor release tends to be a world-shifting event, but fans seemed particularly antsy this time around after the album’s debut single, the sinister ham-fest ‘Look What You Made Me Do,’ infamously declared the nose-punch heard ‘round the world, 

“I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ‘cause she’s DEAD.”

 With a line like that on the very first single, fans were eager to see the “new Taylor” embrace the power of the snake and destroy her enemies with every passive-aggressive stab to the throat. The cutesy breakup anthems were all fun and games before; this time, Tay Tay’s out for blood.

So, is the old Taylor truly dead, buried, and gone from the pop lexicon forever? The short answer: not really, no. The album is still chock-full of the usual songs about shitty exes and amazing new boyfriends that she has always done since she was a thirteen-year-old crying on her guitar. The biggest difference, and biggest point of growth, this time around comes thematically, as Taylor sheds her squeaky-clean, wholesome pop star persona and finally admits to the world that she’s an adult in her twenties who parties, drinks, occasionally makes questionable decisions, and yes, has sex. We’re not talking a left turn as drastic as Miley Cyrus circa-

but for an artist who made people’s heads explode when she showed her 

 it’s a surprisingly big step nonetheless. Wave goodbye to breakfast at midnight and innocent musings about first-base loves, folks. This pop star’s all about whisky on ice, spilling wine in the bathtub, and leaving scratches on lovers’ backs.

It’s an ultimately necessary pivot after the world stopped buying Taylor’s “good girl” shtick two summers ago, and not only does she roll with it, but on a few of the songs, she actually sounds like she’s having a damn good time. On ‘Dress,’ one of the record’s strongest tracks and probably the one that’ll cause the most double-takes, Taylor sings in the chorus, “I only bought this dress so you could take it off,” followed by a repeat of “take it off” with some, shall we say, 

breathing techniques. It’s easily the most provocative Taylor has ever been, but it doesn’t feel all that forced, or like she’s doing it for the shock factor. Considering the firestorm she’s endured, the song comes across as a convincing ballad about embracing unbridled lust and intimacy in the face of a harsh and judgmental outside world.

These types of tracks might be more introspective than the people ready for a catfight were hoping for, and there certainly are tracks that oblige – more on that in a second. But honestly, Taylor has always been at her strongest as a songwriter when she paints personal, introspective stories that have an uncanny amount of wit and depth for pop music. That fact remains the case on 

whose best moments come when Taylor focuses on telling these contained tales of past, and current loves. Yeah, she’s more up-front about her vices this time around, but that adds a much-needed sense of maturity that prevents things from becoming too stale.

Take ‘Getaway Car,’ for example, which explores the negative effects of fame on relationships through vivid metaphors of running away Bonnie-and-Clyde style, only to be trapped in an endless loop of scrutiny and drama 

(“Well, he was runnin’ after us, I was screamin’, ‘Go, go, go!’ / But with three of us, honey, it’s a sideshow / And a circus ain’t a love story”

). ‘New Year’s Day,’ a stripped-back closing track that’s a welcome retreat from the synths and drum pads, offers a poignant look into how memories will be the only thing you can hold onto after the party’s over and all the guests have left. Even as someone who never was fully on board with Taylor’s patented sentimentality, there’s no denying that lyrics like 

“Please don’t ever become a stranger / Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere”

 hit pretty damn hard. It’s tracks like these where Taylor shows the most growth in her strengths, and a greater confidence to be a fuller, liberated version of the glossed-up pop image she’s been up to now. In other words, when she leans closer to “old Taylor,” but still exudes a newfound conviction, the songs work.

It’s no secret that the record has been sold as this edgy new rebirth for Taylor, hence why she came out the gates swinging with ‘LWYMMD.’ Ironically enough, however, it’s in these moments where she actively tries to be edgy and address her various controversies directly that the album feels painfully heavy-handed and lacks the fun of her past records. ‘LWYMMD,’ namely, is by far the album’s lowest point, as it’s devoid of any hint of nuance and wit that even Taylor’s shallowest songs usually possess, instead devolving into a pissy knee-jerk reaction to year-old squabbles. Fans who actually still care about the Kimye and Katy Perry stuff will inevitably eat it up, but for people who thought the whole situation was petty and stupid to begin with, the song will come across as just that. ‘I Did Something Bad’ feels like it only exists so that Taylor could say “shit” in a song for the first time, and ‘This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things’ tries to go for the same quirky “screw the haters” thing as 

, but feels so snot-nosed and heavy-handed that I had to take an Excedrin after hearing her forced cackle.

It’s in these certain tracks where it feels as though, despite what she claims, Taylor does in fact care what people say about her, and as a result, she’s painfully over-compensating to make it seem like she doesn’t. At the very least, the album’s final single, ‘Call It What You Want,’ offers the one true level-headed look at the past year, accomplishing what tracks like ‘LWYMMD’ attempted to do with infinitely more grace. Again, this song works because it shows Taylor viewing her public troubles from an introspective standpoint, reflecting on how her loved ones stood by her even when everyone else was quick to tear her down. No matter if you’re yay or nay-Tay, 

immediately more appealing and potent than some half-assed line about receipts.

lacks the thematic focus of her past records lyrics-wise, the instrumentation is at least pretty consistent throughout, with Max Martin and Jack Antonoff trading producer credits on every other song. You can clearly hear Taylor leaning into her hip-hop tendencies more than ever before, which may rub people who’ve accused her of appropriation the wrong way, but it honestly only bothered me when it didn’t work. Her sing-rap hybrid style on the verses for ‘…Ready For It?’ are exciting and pack plenty of personality and snarl over the trap-inspired beat, which makes for a solid pump-up track even while the chorus falls a little flat. Immediately following that, however, is the less-than-stellar Future/Ed Sheeran collab ‘Endgame’ which, between Future’s mumble rap and Sheeran’s über-intricate, perpetually dorky verbal acrobatics, feels like a hastily made grab bag of current Top 40 hip-hop trends. Add Taylor’s white-girl-singing-along-with-Migos vocal delivery on top, and the song has so many vastly different parts that it becomes distracting.

likely won’t be remembered as Taylor’s strongest album, but even with its various issues and low points, it’s hard to call it an outright dud. At her best, Taylor still delivers well-crafted pop songs that will latch onto your brain like Flex Tape, and it’s these tracks that point to a promising, and more mature direction for the former teen star. If there were only more moments like this, though, then maybe this album would’ve come together better. But for now, 

is not going to win over anyone who wasn’t already on Taylor’s team. There will probably still be outcry over appropriation, she’ll probably still be called out for her nonexistent political stance, and many skeptics, including me, will probably still take anything she says with a grain of salt. I mean, when her legal goons hand out a defamation suit to some irrelevant blogger for a little-known stink-piece during release week, can Taylor really turn around and say she doesn’t give a damn about her reputation?

isn’t going to offer any true revelations, but that definitely can’t be considered a failure. It isn’t a reinvention so much as it was a step somewhere different, and whether or not that step is in the right direction will be left up to the listener. Personally, I think the album offers a compelling change in Taylor’s style, that hopefully points to more focused work down the line. But in the end, the album is going to do exactly what you’d expect a Taylor Swift album to do: Her fans are going to love it, her haters are going to hate it, and it’s going to sell a bajillion copies in its first week. Nothing lost, nothing gained, and after the year she’s had, maybe that’s good enough for now.

oh wait. It’s not available yet. Anyway, listen to what she does have on Spotify here:

Taylor Swift releases full-length ‘reputation’

The Canadian dream-pop outfit kicked off their fall tour in Boston last week with a show that perfectly matched their music: Sweet, simple, and a whole lotta fun.

Last Tuesday night at the famous Paradise Rock Club, indie breakouts Alvvays accomplished possibly one of the hardest challenges a band could ever face: They made hipsters dance.

Put down your torches and herb scissors, hipsters, let me explain: In a certain subsection of the modern rock scene, it’s increasingly become the norm to go to a show and just 

. No moving, no swaying, not even a nonchalant head-bob; just a bunch of people in flannel holding PBR cans and sulking. Maybe I’ve just had a recent streak of shows with shit crowds, but it always sucks to see a band giving it their all only to get 200-plus thousand-yard stares in return. Thank God that wasn’t the case for Alvvays, who easily made the sold-out Rock Club brim with energy and movement thanks to their packed set of dreamy, youthfully upbeat pop songs.

But before the band took the stage, hometown favorites Beeef kicked off the night with a quick set featuring their brand of jangly-yet-distorted post-punk. Just like the shows main act, the Allston quartet specializes in the reverb-y, guitar-driven type of indie rock that somehow feels both meticulously crafted and excitingly spontaneous at the same time. Songs like the floor-stomping ‘Tree’ and the cathartic ‘Dogshit Paradise’ provided plenty of catchy guitar riffs and witty lyricism, and proved the band’s skill at staying locked-in with each other even while tackling deceivingly difficult individual parts.

As someone who hadn’t actually heard of the band before the show, I was into it pretty much immediately, and I’m definitely keeping them on my radar from here on out. That said, even though I was into it, the crowd seemingly had an overall mixed reaction. While the band had a fair share of their devotees in the audience, namely the ones who screamed “BEEEEEEEEEEF” in between songs, a good portion of the crowd stuck to their stoic, stone-faced ways. Maybe it was because the band members themselves were pretty motionless, though in a “concentrating-on-playing” sort of way, but I have no idea how people didn’t get more airborne with music as fun as Beeef’s.

Soon after Beeef left the stage, Alvvays quickly took their places and launched into wonderfully frantic ‘Saved By A Waif.’ The 

 track was a perfect opener to the night, because people immediately woke up and started jumping around and singing along to the song’s earworm chorus. From that point on, the crowd that was lifeless as a mannequin warehouse 30 minutes before was now tingling with bobbing heads and mini dance-parties, which is always a beautiful sight to see.

The band’s set was pretty much upbeat and high-energy the whole way through, though the mellow slow-burn ‘Forget About Life’ right at the halfway point offered a nice change of pace to let people catch their breath. Their 

pretty much made up the first half of the show, with songs like the swirling and all-encompassing ‘In Undertow,’ the adorable ‘Lollipop (Ode to Jim),’ and the bright and jangly ‘Pimsoll Punks.’ Even with the warm production and heavily textured instrumentation on the record, the band pretty much nailed the tracks live, washing the crowd with waves of synths, reverb, and guitar feedback. Like all great rock frontwomen that have come before her, 

 enchanted the audience with her soft and disarming vocals, effortlessly going from bouncy and frantic on ‘Hey’ to heartbreakingly longing and melancholy on ‘Dreams Tonite.’

As great as this new record is, the crowd favorites still seem to be songs from the band’s 2014 self-titled debut, which makes sense considering how quickly that record caught fire among indie circles. The band seems to be aware of this too, because they saved most of the first record for the latter half of the show, with tracks like ‘Next Of Kin’ and ‘Party Police’ sending the crowd into a frenzy. Of course, the song that received the biggest response was the cutesy ode to young love, ‘Marry Me, Archie,’ with couples all over the venue hugging and cuddling as they swayed along to the song. No matter your opinion on marriage, there really was no way to hold back a smile as the whole venue erupted singing “HEY, HEEEEEEY,” during the song’s chorus.

If the crowd response was any indication, ‘Archie’ is still Alvvays’ biggest song, so it probably would’ve been better to save it for the encore rather than the third-to-last track. In fact, if there was anything to gripe about the show, it was that because the initial set was filled with so many crowd-pleasers, there was pretty much nothing left for the encore. While ‘The Agency’ was nice to hear, closing the night with a cover of ‘Trying To Be Kind’ by the Motorcycle Boy ended up feeling a bit anti-climactic, and the fact people in the balcony were chatting up a storm or straight-up leaving during the closer was pretty evident of that. Regardless, the night proved to be incredibly fun overall, with both Alvvays and Beeef offering plenty of riffs and hooks to get stuck in your head for days. Hell, a week-plus later, and I’m still humming the chorus to ‘Lollipop.’ But honestly, with songs as good as these, long-term earworms are totally cool with me.

Alvvays @ Paradise Rock Club

In honor of the late rocker, here’s a rundown of just some of the songs that cements Petty as one of music’s greatest storytellers.

There’s no sugarcoating this one: The music world lost an irreplaceable talent last Monday. After spending an entire day fighting for his life, Tom Petty, legendary songwriter and one of rock’s greatest performers, died of cardiac arrest at the age of 66. Less than a week before that, he had just wrapped up a 53-date 40th Anniversary tour with his longtime band, the Heartbreakers, which was intended from the start to be the their last big, nationwide tour. I was lucky enough to see Petty at their fourth-to-last show in Sacramento, CA, and long story short, the entire band was incredible. It was a perfect reminder of how great Petty was at performing, songwriting, and just bringing thousands of strangers together to sing, dance, and have a good time. In that spirit of unity, I thought the only real way to honor Petty, and to explain to non-fans why he’ll be remembered as a legend, was with the many, 

songs he wrote over the years. It would require a full-blown academic paper to discuss all of the rocker’s hits, so instead I created a chronological retrospective of Petty’s entire career using just five songs. It was nearly impossible to choose which tracks to leave out, so please be aware there are 

more songs where these came from. Some are classics, some are deeper cuts, but all of them are worth a listen.

This song is usually only acknowledged for being the first single off Petty and the Heartbreakers’ self-titled debut, a mere glimpse of the massive string of classics that were to follow. Yeah, it may not have the same recognition as the band’s second, much bigger single (more on that later), but it’d still be a crime to dismiss “Breakdown” as a lesser song. The smoky, seductive track checks the usual Petty boxes – solid groove, slinky guitar riff, damn catchy chorus, etc. ­– but here’s the real reason this song is, in my mind, genius: Notice how the song starts with a full 30-second instrumental. Kinda weird that the first quarter of a two-and-a-half-minute song is just an intro, right? Well, there’s a reason for that: This song was released back in the days of rock radio, which usually featured zany, talkative DJs babbling a whole lot of nothing over the beginnings of songs. This often meant that listeners missed a good chunk of the first verse due to the DJ introducing the “hot, can’t-miss band” he was simultaneously interrupting, but on “Breakdown,” the first verse doesn’t start for half-a-minute. The band literally gives space for the DJ to say his shpeal, 

This move is, as local Bostonians would put it, “WICKED SMAHT.” The band’s first shot at radio-play is a song 

, but it also shows how much thought and care Petty and the Heartbreakers put into their craft from day one, and that’s definitely something to be admired.

For any spunky, young songwriter out there who wants a lesson in how to write a short, sweet, but incredibly effective rock song, look no further than this little gem from the Heartbreakers’ first bona-fide hit record, 

 In a decade where it was 20-minute long disco jams in the mainstream and blistering fast and chaotic punk rock in the underground, here came along this skinny blonde-haired kid from Florida who loved the Beatles and had no intention of joining either of those crowds (as Petty himself told 

 in 1978, “Call me a punk and I’ll cut you.”). With its remarkably straightforward “AABA” song structure, “Refugee” harkens back to the classic, pre-psychedelic rock sounds of the 1960s at a time when bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were anything but straightforward. The track is still one of the Heartbreakers’ moved beloved by fans to this day, and aptly shows that a “good” rock song isn’t always defined by a five-minute guitar solo or a free-tempo breakdown. Sometimes, a good hook and some smirking attitude is all you need.

“Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” (1981)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UD0c58nNCQ

As you probably gathered from my ramblings at this point, the beauty of Petty’s songwriting style lies in its simplicity. The songs hold up on their own, obviously, but it’s also this very simplicity that gives other artists room to jump in and offer their own artistic flair alongside Petty’s jangly heartland rock, making him a perfect collaborator with just about anyone. This fact is probably best exemplified with your dad’s favorite wholesome super-group, the Travelling Willburys, but Petty proved to be a great co-writer a good decade before that when he teamed up with Stevie Nicks for her first solo record, 

The album’s lead single, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” is as much a Tom Petty song as it is a Stevie Nicks song, but that’s the true beauty of this track. No egos hogging the spotlight here; just two artists giving the best at what they do – Nicks’ mesmerizing howl, Petty and the Heartbreakers’ less-is-more groove – to create one of the best songs of both of their careers.

The mid-1980s proved to be a bit rocky for the Heartbreakers, causing the sessions for their ambitious pseudo-concept album 

to be pretty tense for everyone involved. Things became so on edge, in fact, that during the mixing of this very track, Petty got so PO’d that he punched a wall, shattering his hand as a result. 

but luckily for Petty’s left hand, “Rebels” actually turned out pretty great. At a solid five minutes, it may not be the cleanest written Petty tune, but the song’s lyrics weave a deeply impassioned tale of a good ol’ Southern boy whose proud heritage is also his greatest curse, making it one of Petty’s most complex and thought-provoking works. At the time of its release, however, most listeners didn’t get that subtext is a thing that exists in most art, so the song was widely misinterpreted as a Confederate flag-swinging anthem for Southern pride. This unwanted response caused Petty to essentially shelve the song after the 

tour out of frustration, only pulling it out once in a blue moon in the years that followed. It’s too bad, really, because even though it’s not a perfect song – Dave Stewart’s new wave production is admittedly a bit distracting – “Rebels” is still an underrated and deeply reflective track that gives the listener a glimpse into Petty’s own struggles with his Southern family tree.

After going non-stop since the ’70s, Petty took a much-needed break from the Heartbreakers in the late ’80s, but in true workingman fashion, he intended to stay busy in his newfound downtime. In 1989, he brought on Electric Light Orchestra mastermind and fellow Beatle fanatic Jeff Lynne as a producer, and the pair created Petty’s most successful record of his career, 

While there are plenty of winners to talk about on this album, namely “Free Fallin’,” “I Won’t Back Down,” and “Runnin’ Down A Dream” among others, I decided to point out the record’s fifth and final single, “Yer So Bad.” It may not be the flashiest track on the record, sure, but it’s still a great example of the rocker firing on all creative cylinders, crafting a sharp, witty song with a melody that’ll creep into your head before you can even notice. In just a quick three-minutes, Petty weaves a raspy tale of deceit, theft, and steadfast love, complete with a cast of characters and a rousing chorus to tie it all together. Just as his mop-topped heroes did before him, Petty was truly the master at writing simple songs packed with substance and energy, proving that even a good eight records into his career, he could still deliver some solid home runs.

For his second solo outing, Petty brought on famed producer/beard enthusiast Rick Rubin to help record another all-time classic, 

This particular record showcases Petty at his most quiet and most tender, signaling the clearest departure from his gritty, twang-y rock tunes from his early years. Like 

there are simply too many songs from this record to talk about for this list (if the 

 doesn’t make you well up at least a little bit, then you might wanna go look for the soul you apparently 

), so for our purposes, let’s shine the light on a slightly deeper cut, “To Find A Friend.” I could go on and on about this track, but instead, just listen to the lyrics:

“In the middle of his life / He left his wife / And ran off to be bad / Boy, it was sad / But he bought a new car / Found a new bar / And went under another name / Created a whole new game

“And the days went by like paper in the wind / Everything changed, then changed again / It’s hard to find a friend”

So much life and imagery about lost love and crushing loneliness, and we haven’t even gotten to the second verse yet. It’s a downright beautiful track that is bound to resonate with anyone who has struggled to find people to love and count on, aka pretty much anyone who’s lived at least a day or two. Songwriting truly doesn’t get much better than this.

“American Girl” (1976, Hollywood Bowl clip)

Finally, we’re going to end this journey with one of the songs that started it all, the Heartbreakers’ second single and fans’ most cherished song, “American Girl.” This jangly anthem to youthful abandon acted as a thesis statement of sorts for the rest of Tom Petty’s career: A song about everyday people stuck in small towns, dreaming about the “great big world” that lies just down the highway. For the next 40 years, Petty would continue to write and sing about these kinds of people, the everymen and women always chasing dreams or looking for a better life to live. Even while he became a music legend in his own right, he never forgot about the small town where he came from, and all the small town people who looked up to him not as an untouchable rock star, but as someone just like them. Petty and the Heartbreakers closed every night of their 40th Anniversary Tour with “American Girl,” including the final show Petty played. The clip above is from that night, taken front row at LA’s Hollywood Bowl on September 25, 2017. Just like the man himself, we’ll end with this song too.

Thanks for everything, Tom. It’s time to get going, but we’ll keep the music playing for the whole ride.

He Was An American Icon: Why Tom Petty Matters

If you’ve followed Los Angeles’ Fitz & the Tantrums for a while, you know that they’ve come a long way since their old-fashioned soul beginnings. Their 2010 debut album 

was a straightforward, catchy record with a vintage edge, taking pretty obvious cues from Stax and Motown. Two albums later, the band has moved closer and closer to a modern indie-pop sound, breaking out the synth riffs and modern studio polish in spades on this year’s self-titled record, which likely both won them new fans and alienated fans who preferred their earlier work. Regardless of where you stand on the band’s sound, Fitz have also been known to put on some pretty exciting and high-energy shows, so I was looking forward to seeing what they got at the House of Blues recently.

First up on the bill was London-based artist 

, who had to take on the always-difficult task of being an unknown opener playing to people waiting for the band they paid for to show up. Courtney certainly tried his hardest to work the crowd, and he definitely had the stage presence to turn some heads. Walking out onstage with a 50’s greaser hairdo, a popped collar, and a slightly unbuttoned shirt, Courtney gave off that confident, 70’s rocker charisma without teetering over into self-serving parody other rock stars fall into (looking at you, Alex Turner). With a beat up acoustic guitar held together by duct tape and a simple bass-and-drums backing band, Courtney played stomping and anthemic songs heavy on blues-rock and gospel. Songs like “Hands,” “Golden Dandelions,” and “Glitter and Gold” were filled with heavy beats and catchy hooks; Courtney put all he had into every song to the point where he literally started bleeding on his guitar.

However, I feel that the odds were against Courtney on this one, mostly because in the context of the entire show, an acoustic led three-piece with a busking vibe didn’t really mix well with the sleek, indie-pop 6-piece as the main act. Courtney tried his hardest to talk to the crowd and gain their attention, but even with his charisma and wit, most of the crowd didn’t seem all that into it, and it reached the point where the in-between song banter began to drag the set a little. The final song, “Fire,” apparently called for a lot of clapping and singing along, as Courtney vamped the song a few times to remind us, but the reception just wasn’t there, making Courtney’s attempt to jump into the front row all the more awkward. While the set faltered because of audience ambivalence, you can’t accuse the guy of not trying, and the set did start off super strong. The energy and showmanship is there, and with a few more songs and less banter, I’d definitely be willing to see Barns Courtney in the future.

After the lights and confetti cannons were set up, Fitz & the Tantrums finally made their way to the stage and set the energy level high right away with the highly danceable “Get Right Back.” The crowd definitely woke the hell up for Fitz; people were singing along and dancing around despite the packed-in space. Whether or not you liked the band’s pop-heavy sound on their recent record, the new tracks mixed in with their older blues/soul songs made for a surprisingly varied set. Michael Fitzpatrick and co. hit a good amount of material from all three of their albums, which really helped the set stay fresh and showed the scope of the band’s musical talent and influences. “Moneygrabber” and “Don’t Gotta Work It Out” were two standouts from their first record and a nice throwback to their early days, “Out Of My League” was a definite crowd-pleaser that got everyone singing, and “Fools Gold” gained a lot more energy in the live setting that wasn’t there on the album. Even while the new material is pretty pop-y, it doesn’t sound like the band trying too hard to make it on the radio, and you can still hear those old soul influences if you pay attention. “Walking Target” has a bassline and drumbeat underneath all the synths and samples that screams “Motown,” and “Roll Up” has that horns-and-synth mix you hear other artists try to emulate to a lesser effect.

Aside from the music, the band themselves have a collective stage presence that is infectious, following the long-held soul music tradition of the concert into a sweaty, sax-filled dance party. The band gave plenty of chances throughout the night for saxophonist James King to take extended solos and really show off what he could do, and Fitzpatrick and vocalist Noel Scaggs (the self-proclaimed “bossy bitch of the band”) both brought lots of showmanship but never got in each other’s way. The two were acting more as dual lead singers rather than the usual lead/backup singer dynamic, and the undeniable chemistry between them was both playful and sensual, making the crowd go nuts with every exchanged glance. The band closed out the night with their most recent single, “HandClap,” and likely their most popular song, “The Walker,” setting off the confetti cannons and making everyone go crazy until the very last note. Even with a slow start and an initially unenthusiastic crowd, Fitz & the Tantrums got everyone out of their seats pretty easily, and overall made for a pretty fun night.

Be sure to check out an interview we did with Fitz & the Tantrums 

Fitz & The Tantrums @ House of Blues

Hype can be a nasty, double-edged sword; it can provide an artist or band free and easy press but, as Public Enemy once said, hype shouldn’t always be believed. If you’re a soul music fan, a connoisseur of up-and-coming talent, or have hung out with Northeastern University’s CAMD Director of Co-op, Craig Bettinson, for more than two minutes – then you know the hype around Houston-based band The Suffers. After hearing the band speak about their journey on campus for a CAMD event, I was lucky enough to see them live for the first time at The Sinclair.

Although I was only exposed to the band recently, it’s clear The Suffers are in the midst of a huge upswing. They were one of the final musical acts to perform on 

and have been steadily climbing up various festival lineups, gaining tons of loyal fans thanks to their relentless touring and electrifying shows. Even with their debut, self-titled LP only being released earlier this year, every Suffers fan I’ve met speaks of the band with the undying reverence usually reserved for the Dylans or Springsteens of the world. After watching the band perform, I can say without a doubt that – thankfully – all the hype around the Suffers is undoubtedly and unmistakably true.

Before being blown away by the Suffers, I was also pleasantly surprised by the show’s opening act, Jakübi. Flying in all the way from their hometown of Melbourne, Australia, the band was clearly over the moon to be there, giving off an endearing “lads-having-fun” charm as they performed. Even while playfully shoving each other and cracking jokes onstage, the band’s playing was sharp and on-point, and their chemistry and easy-going vibe won over the audience in no time. With songs like “Couch Potato,” “Bank Account,” and “Telling Me to Change,” the band managed to find a nice blend of radio-ready alternative rock, frantic and spontaneous indie rock, and more laid-back soul jams – comparable to Twenty One Pilots, if they listened to more James Brown. While I thought the talkbox died in 1995, singer/keyboardist Jerome Farah showed off some super impressive skills without falling into cliché, so that alone was entertaining to watch. The tiny gripe I had was that some of the songs did hit a typical pop radio sound slightly hard for my taste. I’m all for gushy, harmless love songs and wordless, “woah-oh” choruses to a point, but after the fourth or fifth song in that style, the set started feeling a little repetitive. Even with that being said, Jakübi was still a ton of fun to watch and showed a lot of potential for mainstream popularity.

The opener definitely got people in the mood to dance with good vibes through the roof by the time the Suffers made their way to the stage. The band started with their opening “ritual” of sorts, all members striking a pose similar to their album cover, screaming as though they just won a marathon, and launching into the high-energy stomper “Gwan.” Those opening few minutes served as a preface for the rest of the show, followed by a night filled with excitement, solid grooves, and genuinely friendly people who all want to have a good time. Calling the Suffers’ music “revivalist” soul would not truly do it justice – and while I’m all for the old-fashioned – the band’s work is simply so much more than that. At one point during the night, singer Kam Franklin called their sound “Gulf Coast Soul,” emphasizing the diverse mix of cultures and genres that takes place in their hometown of Houston. It was the closest you could get to naming their unique style with songs like “Peanuts” and “Make Some Room” channeling some wonderfully vintage soul and R&B, while “Midtown” and the aforementioned “Gwan” showed off some rock tendencies. The band even took some unexpected forays into reggae with “Good Day” and Latin soul with a cover of “Bailes de Cumbia.” By successfully juggling so many different genres without coming off as imitation, the Suffers have given old-fashioned soul some much welcomed new life in manner that is genuine and of higher quality than almost any other band today.

It’s even crazier when you realize that the band’s only been around for the past five years when it sounds like they’ve been playing with each other for decades. Every groove the band laid out was tight and on-point, the solos were exciting and never too long, and even the chemistry between the members was fun to watch. Without a doubt, the group’s stage presence owed largely to Kam Franklin, her electrifying showmanship reeled the crowd in almost immediately and held their attention the whole night. Franklin’s expressions and dance moves as she belted out each track were a true testament to the phrase “dance like nobody’s watching,” showcasing a level of confidence and swagger only the best bandleaders can master.

But probably the best thing about the band, and the night in general, is how thankful they were to be playing music for their fans, both longtime supporters and excited newbies. It’s common to hear “thank you” and “glad to be here” thrown out but The Suffers actually took brief breaks in the set to stop and wholeheartedly say thanks. They talked about how far they’ve come as a band, how they started as a bunch of normal people with day jobs who one day said “fuck it” and took a risk, and how grateful they are to every person who has helped that risk pay off over the years. It was incredibly refreshing to see a group of artists so candid with their audience, and the positive message of taking risks and doing what you love in life definitely hit home for everyone listening. Throw that sense of modesty and gratitude on top of the fact that this band can play some damn good music, and I really can’t think of anyone more deserving of success than The Suffers. I haven’t had this much fun at a show in a while and can own up to being a Suffers convert – if you’ve never seen this band live, change that as soon as possible.

Robert Steiner