By their own account, Elise Okusami and Oceantor have been on the road for seven separate tours this calendar year. That’s a LOT of touring. Sharing the stage with such diverse acts as Pedro The Lion, PUP, Jeff Rosenstock, Laura Jane Grace and Tim Kashner to name just a few. They also toured the UK for their first time along with criss-crossing the States way more than any human should within one set of 365 days.
This hectic and sometimes chaotic touring schedule finally came to a close last Saturday night with Oceanator’s headline homecoming gig at The Broadway. Support for this tour closing show came from the likes of Philadelphia’s Queen of Jeans who’d been on the road with Oceanator the last few weeks as well as added guest, Georgia Maq of Camp Cope who was passing through New York City on the way back to Australia from the UK. Oh, and on top of all of this Oceanator released a killer album in 2022 called Nothing’s Ever Fine, on Polyvinyl Recordswhich I’m sure will land on numerous best of lists this year (It’s firmly embedded in mine, that’s for sure).
As I’ve stated in the past, Oceanator is one of those enigmatic bands which just seems to get better and better every time you see them. Saturday night was certainly no exception to this standard. Opening the set up with the shoegazey instrumental from Nothing’s Ever Fine, “Morning,” Okusami and the rest of Oceantor (Dylan Lapointe on bass and Lou Hanman on drums) took what was already a piece which builds momentum and energy from start to finish to a whole other level, building it into a sonic crescendo which might have had ears bleeding upon its completion.
Oceanator
Sticking to material from the new album, the next five songs were all from NEF, albeit not in the same sequence as they were presented on the LP. When the band kicked into the fuzzed out guitar intro of “The Last Summer” followed by Okusami’s breakneck recitation of the opening lines
Neon signs, flashing by me and a
Cherry coke and crumpled bag of french fries lying
on the passenger seat
Where you used to be
One hand out the window
watching Light play
across the hood of my car
from the streetlights passing by
One couldn’t help but reminisce about those teenage summer nights just driving around killing time looking for something to do. It was almost Springstonian in the song’s ability to capture that kind of moment.
It wouldn’t be until well into the set when we’d get the slow burner “January 21” from the 2020 debut album, Things Never Said. Next up we were treated to a relatively rare song called “Average Joe” which was released on a Sub Pop compilation called The Eleventh Hour: Songs for Climate Justicefollowed by “Bad Brain Daze” from the new one. This song with Okusami ’s powerful staccato guitar strums filled in with Hanman’s pounding drum beat had the filled room jumping up and down right on cue.
The evening would close out with a demonic like sludgy demolition of my ear drums version of “In the Van” with its “Star Spangled Banner” guitar riffs and bottom heavy chugging rhythm backbone. Appropriately followed by the waltz like “Evening” with its translucent imagery of a hot humid summer’s night and the cicadas humming in the trees. And with that peaceful image in our heads the night was over only for us to soon be slapped back to the reality of the freezing cold winter’s air and the clanging of the M train as it passed over Broadway.
Of course, there was more to the evening than Oceanator’s set. The last minute addition of Georgia Maq to the bill was a tremendous surprise to which I was elated to hear as Maq doesn’t make it to these parts very often. She did have a solo gig scheduled for the Spring of 2020 over at Trans-Pecos but we all know how that panned out. So having a chance to see her solo was truly an added treat. Being self admittedly jet lagged, sleep deprived and hung over, she treated us to a five song set of all new material interspersed with candid stories and tales which would certainly make most of our mother’s blush if they were to have heard them. All of that being said, the new songs were wonderful, especially “Brooklyn, Not This One,” “Neighbors” (about her lockdown friendship, wink wink, with her neighbor) and “They’ll Never Dance Like Us” (about her short lived relationship with an anti-vaxxer). NOTE:` As these were new songs, I am guessing at the song titles and probably have gotten them wrong. My apologies to Georgia for any inaccuracies.
Georgia Maq
Following Maq’s set was the Philadelphia band, Queen Of Jeans. Another band that I’d heard of but was not familiar with their actual material. (Who can keep track of all these Philly bands these days anyway?) They opened up their set with the title track off of this year’s EP, Hiding In Place. As I would soon discover, played live, the band’s material comes off much more aggresive and loud than it dows on the poppier recorded versions. And truth be told, this was fine by me. Queen’s set was a nice mix of songs from the aforementioned EP as well as their 2019 LP, If You’re Not Afraid, I’m Not Afraid. The band itself, composed of Miri Devora on lead vocals and guitar, Matti Glass on background vocals and lead guitar, Lou Hanman on bass and background vocals (is there any band that Lou doesn’t play with?) and Andrew Nitz on drums sounded great especially on “Only ObviousTo You,” a love gone wrong song, which started out slowly with Devora quietly singing in her waif-like style only to build into the climactic chorus of “love will always fuck you over” complete with Glass’ screeching guitar all the while flipping the audience the bird.
All in all, I have to say that this was one of those special nights where all three acts were truly a pleasure to watch and hear as they performed not only heartfelt but vividly emotional story songs complete with fantastic musical accompaniment.
Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Ray Rusinak)
The old adage that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” couldn’t be more true than in the case of Brooklyn’s very own fuzz punk power popsters, Dead Stars. It’s been well over two and a half years since Jeff Moore, John Watterberg, and Jaye Moore have blessed us with their presence on stage and well, let me just say that their return was triumphant to say the very least. When they announced last month that they would be doing a show at Main Drag Music, I for one was to the moon excited. I mean, we’d last heard from the band on February 19, 2020 when they played a record release show at Union Pool (ironically this show also had Desert Sharks on the bill) to celebrate the release of their new album Never Not Here which would drop two days later on February 21st.
Well, needless to say that within two weeks after this show, the world would effectively shut down and things would proceed to become very different, not only for the band but for everyone. Jeff would move to the Hudson Valley and John and his wife would finally open the restaurant (Santa Fe BK) that had been their dream for years. And like so many of us, because of lockdown and whatnot, it became easy to stop doing things. Unfortunately, being a band and playing music together was one of those things which slipped through the cracks for the guys. No breakup, no hard feelings, no artistic differences; just a case of life getting in the way. That is until a month or so ago when Jeff got on the horn with the great idea to “let’s play some music.” Which brings us to this past Friday night.
Before I get into the show itself, let me first say a few words about Main Drag Music. If you’re at all familiar with Main Drag, that familiarity is as a music store specializing in vintage musical instruments for sale as well as repair. And they’ve recently commenced hosting events in their basement space. Walking down the metal staircase into the brick walled basement room with its monstrously high ceilings immediately brought to mind, not because of any physical similarity, but more of a spiritual vibe, the bygone days of Williamsburg waterfront spaces like Glasslands, 285 Kent and Death By Audio. It goes without saying that for those who remember those wonderful rooms, any similarity to them is certainly a really good thing. I certainly hope that this venture works out for Main Drag, so if you happen to see or hear about something else going on there, by all means check it out.
Dead Stars
I first came to be familiar with Dead Stars with their 2014 release, Slumber. Its distortion fused guitar fuzz brought to mind for me the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and The Lemonheads and I was immediately hooked. Fortunately the band was playing gigs around and about town on a regular basis so I was lucky enough to see them live often and each and every time it was a complete sonic blast, both literally and figuratively.
Not that I thought anything differently, but Friday’s show was more of the same, only better. Taking the stage at just before 11pm to a thundering reception from the filled room of what appeared to be mostly long time friends and fans of the band, they started things off with “Fractured” off of 2013’s High Gain EP followed by another older song, “Kill Me In The Summertime” from 2012’s I Get By EP. It would be easy to say that the band was purposely coming out ready to rock hard, but you’d be hard pressed to find too many slow ballads in their repertoire, so rocking hard is pretty much what the faithful have always come to expect from the band. That being said, rock hard is exactly what they did. The volume was way up and the energy both onstage as well as in the crowd was at peak levels. Lead singer Jeff Moore thanked everyone for coming out to the show and offering such great support for the band. Jokingly he said that when they booked the gig, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be the only one to show up, “I wasn’t even sure if these guys (pointing to Jaye and John) would be here.”
I’m not sure how much the guys were able to actually practice prior to this show considering the aforementioned post pandemic logistics, but damn they sounded great together. By the time they kicked into “Someone Else,” the lead track from Slumber with its distortion-fueled guitar and tumultuous drum lines, it was as if Dead Stars had never even left. The tightness and fluidity that was spilling off the stage was so refreshing. Getting to see Jeff, John and Jaye feed off one another, knowing exactly what each was going to do long before they themselves knew what was coming, was what you come to expect from a band that really enjoys playing with one another. One which has spent countless hours playing together, diving into one another’s brains and psyches.
Interestingly, it wasn’t until almost the end of the set when the band played anything off of their last album, Never Not Here. But we did ultimately get to hear “Hold My Breath” and “Dreams Don’t Come True” before the evening closed out with “Crawl,” another ripper from the Slumber album. And that was it. Despite the crowd yelling, screaming and chanting for an encore, Jeff sheepishly apologized, saying, “that’s all we rehearsed, we don’t have anything else ready.” But I certainly can’t complain. We got a set of roughly 13 or so songs filled with the proverbial fuzz and distortion. A set filled with songs which many of us weren’t sure we’d ever get to hear again in a live setting and to this it was a great night. Lets just hope that with the pandemic malaise hopefully behind us, Dead Stars will resurrect on a permanent basis going forward.
As for the opening bands which started the evening off, first up was Desert Sharks who are certainly no strangers to fans of Dead Stars, having shared the stage with them on numerous occasions in the past. With their own brand of psychedelic garage punk, bassist and lead vocalist, Stephanie Gunther led the band through a scorching set heavy on tunes from the most recent Baby’s Gold Death Stadium album. I’ve always known the Sharks to put on an energetic, vibrant and fun filled show and for sure Friday’s set was spot on to that formula. Even when drummer Rebecca Fruchter’s kick drum pedal broke, the band didn’t miss a beat. The hIghlight of their set for me was their relatively new cover of Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry” (which was reviewed here at FTA back in August 2021) with its thundering bass and chugging guitar creating a perfectly explosive combo.
Next up were Clone. Led by LG Galleon, also of Dead Leaf Echo, Clone reminded me of early Joy Division with its guitar heavy post punk. Between Galleon’s thrashing reverb induced guitar, Gregg Giuffe’s bombastic drumming and Paulie Lizárraga’s thundering Hookian bass, not to mention the dark brick lined basement room, it almost felt like we‘d been time machined to Manchester circa 1978. Galleon, despite having to play through numerous broken strings, the first of which was jokingly passed off with the off hand remark “Oh we’ve got plenty more strings.” The second one to snap led him to quip, “ugh oh, we’re running out of these things, anyone know where we can get more?” Obviously an off handed joke considering we were in the basement of an actual music store (albeit one which was currently closed for the night). None of this slowed him or the band down as they played through a paradoxical set exemplifying moments of both aggressive anger along with introspective melancholy. Clone’s set certainly left me with an itch which I will need to scratch in the future.
Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Ray Rusinak)
Back in March of this year, New Jersey punk rock and rollers The Gaslight Anthem kind of blew up the internet (well at least the small segment of the internet that follows them) with news that the band was coming out of their self imposed hiatus and would be hitting the road again as well as having plans to start work on new material. The four original band members—Brian Fallon, Alex Rosamilia, Alex Levine, and Benny Horowitz—along with touring member Ian Perkins, had decided after their year long tour back in 2015 behind their fourth studio album, Get Hurt, that the band would be shutting it down (at least temporarily). Needless to say, fans of the band were crushed.
Then in 2018 the boys announced that they would be hitting the road for a very limited number of shows to celebrate their seminal ‘59 Sound album’s 10th anniversary. Initially it was going to be a one off show at NYC’s Gov Ball but that soon morphed into a string of shows mostly in the UK, the northeast US and Chicago. Unfortunately when that tour ended it became pretty clear that the band would once again be going their separate ways. All four original members had their own things going on and primary songwriter, singer and guitarist, Brian Fallon, often made it clear in both interviews as well as his onstage banter that the band would not be getting back together anytime soon. I even recall one comment which he made at a solo show at Crossroads in Garwood, NJ how he would probably be gray and bald by the time Gaslight got together again.
So when the news of a tour and new material was announced it was no surprise that TGA’s legions of fans became somewhat frenzied in terms of where they were playing, how were tickets going to be procured and which shows would be destination events. In the original announcement there was no NYC show, with the closest being Holmdel, NJ’s PNC Arts Center, a rather LARGE seated tin shed of an outdoor amphitheater. Roughly a month or so after the initial run of shows went on sale, it was announced that TGA would be playing Pier 17 in New York City along with Brooklyn’s favorite DIY son Jeff Rosenstock.
Let me first say that Pier 17 is certainly a beautiful location to see a show. With the breathtaking view of the Brooklyn Bridge behind the stage, both bands wisely elected to not use their normal stage backdrops. That being said, it is a significantly frillier venue than what Gaslight or Rosenstock normally play. Rosenstock, jokingly after hitting the stage with his song “USA” exclaimed to the crowd that he was thrilled to be back in New York but “I apologize for being so bougie.” Yes, indeed, this was quite a jump from the days of playing places like Silent Barn and Trans-Pecos in Rosenstock’s case or even New Brunswick, NJ’s iconic Court Tavern in Gaslight’s case. Nonetheless, Jeff and his band of John DeDomenici (bass), Kevin Higuchi (drums), Mike Huguenor (guitar) and Dan Potthast (keys, acoustic guitar & sax) ripped through their set with reckless abandon. While the set obviously couldn’t be as extensive as usual, being as Rosenstock was the opener, we were still treated to a set which while heavy on his latest album No Dream, and hit on material from each of his earlier offerings (with the exception of his first solo LP, I Look Like Shit).
Jeff Rosenstock at Pier 17
Gaslight Anthem took the stage around 8:20, jumping right into it with what has been the regular show opener “Have Mercy,” a bonus track off of the deluxe version of 2014’s Get Hurt. Now let me get this out of the way right now: As excited and anxious as Gaslight’s fanbase was when the tour was initially announced, is exactly how critical, disappointed and downright fickle many of the more vocal fans have been throughout the tour thus far. “The sets are too short”, “the sets are too mellow,” “the sets aren’t varied enough,” “Brian talks too much,” etc. These comments have been flooding the Gaslight facebook groups, Twitter and Reddit since the tour began. And these are the band’s most vociferous fans by the way. Unfortunately, I exposed myself to too much of this stuff prior to the show, so I came into the evening with jaded and confused eyes.
Next up was one of my favorite songs off my favorite album of theirs, “Old White Lincoln” from ‘59 Sound. With its classic line “you in your high top sneakers and your sailor tattoos” along with Alex Rosamilia’s cascading guitar fills it has always made this one of the band’s quintessential songs to my ears; to me it almost perfectly defines the band. Well at this show the boys crushed this one. Was the tempo slowed down compared to the album? Yes, but damn, it sounded great! Following that was another bouncing rocker, this one from American Slang, “The Sound Of Jazz.” Using the line about meeting on the New York streets as a segue, Fallon would go on his first extended monologue of the evening waxing poetic about how beautiful the view from the stage was, with the downtown Manhattan skyline in front of him and the Midtown version behind him. It was around now where he made the first self deprecating joke about mistakenly thinking the Empire State Building was in front of him (downtown). This same joke would be repeated a couple of times throughout the evening.
The next couple of songs were a mix of tunes both slow and uptempo from Get Hurt and Handwritten. It was during this section of the show where we did get some more of Brian’s rambling. This time about drummer Benny Horowitz having celebrated a past Rosh Hashanah at Jeff Rosenstock’s house. Not to be one upped, Fallon made it known that all he ever got to do was go to a BBQ at Bruce Springsteen’s, who, by the way was not going to show up this evening. And no, there would be no refunds for disappointed fans. No malice intended whatsoever, it really did come across quite hilariously.
The Gaslight Anthem at Pier 17
We would get a ‘sign’ request next. (NOTE: The band had made it known that they would not respond to any vocal requests during any of their shows. However, song requests presented via a sign or poster, preferably one with lots of glitter would be entertained). This evening’s sign request was “Blue Dahlia,” another tune from Handwritten.
After doing “Halloween” (along with a somewhat bizarre Jeffrey Dahmer intro) the show really began to get interesting. With a piano intro from Bryan Haring (who is helping out on this tour with keyboards and backup vocals) that was both familiar yet uncertain, the band went into Mother Love Bone’s ”Chloe Dancer” which they would segue right into Pearl Jam’s “State Of Love and Trust.” It was during SoLaT that one could notice Fallon’s throat issues for the first time that evening, which had previously caused the band to have to cancel their show a couple of weeks back in Denver. Honestly though, the rasp in Fallon’s voice actually sounded great on this one since Eddie Vedder’s original vocals are pretty scratchy to begin with.
From this point on the show truly took off. Where the first part of the show arguably might have been a bit disjointed and lacking in flow, the second half was pure unadulterated Gaslight New Jersey rock and roll. Coming out of the two grunge songs, Fallon and crew offered up a trio of songs from ‘59 Sound, “The Patient Ferris Wheel,” “Miles Davis and The Cool” and “Film Noir,” followed by the oldest song of the evening, crowd favorite, “Blue Jeans and White T Shirts” from the 2008 EP Señor and the Queen
“Blue Jeans and White T-Shirts” live in 2012
Finishing off the evening, the band offered up another half dozen or so of their choicest and most raucous tunes from a cross section of their albums. The crowd which for most of the evening had been relatively subdued (at least in comparison to what I’ve experienced at past Gaslight shows) but were totally into things at this point. With a circle pit to my right, and everyone singing and jumping up and down all around me, it finally felt like TGA was back. The night finished off with a killer version of “‘59 Sound.” With Fallon’s feedback laced behind the head guitar solo coupled with Rosamilia’s perfectly placed arpeggios and Horowitz’s and Levine’s thundering backbeats on drums and bass, the band couldn’t have ended the evening any better.
With that conclusion (no encore), I for one, knew The Gaslight Anthem as a band was indeed back. Was it the best show I’d ever seen from them? No, probably not. Have they slowed down the pace on much of the material? Absolutely. But for fucks sake, who amongst us hasn’t slowed down in the last 15 to 20 years? Speaking for myself, I know that after a couple of go ‘rounds in the circle pit I need to pull out and recover. I can only imagine what its like attempting to put out 100% on stage for an hour and a half, night after night is like for these guys. So if Fallon goes off on one of his patented rambles as a possible means to let their bodies catch up throughout the evening, so what? If they have to slow some songs down just a bit, so what? Let’s all remember the feeling of elation we felt back in March when we heard the band was getting back together. We’re all older and maybe a little wiser but lets not forget that most importantly we’re all here. Gaslight Anthem is here again with us and to this we should all be jumping up and down yelling and screaming lyrics right along with them.
Scroll down for setlists, fan shot videos and pics of the show (photos by Ray Rusinak)
Jeff Rosenstock setlist: USA, Pash Rash, Scram!, Wave Goodnight to Me, State Line, All This Useless Energy, Festival Song, 9/10, N O D R E A M, Monday At The Beach, Honeymoon Ashtray, Nausea, You In Weird Cities
Gastlight Anthem setlist: Have Mercy, Old White Lincoln, The Spirit of Jazz, Mae, Get Hurt, Stay Lucky, Blue Dahlia, Halloween, Chloe Dancer (Mother Love Bone cover), State of Love and Trust (Pearl Jam cover), The Patient Ferris Wheel, Miles Davis and the Cool, Film Noir, Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts, Stay Vicious, American Slang, Great Expectations, National Anthem, 45, The ’59 Sound
The Beths third and latest full length release, Expert In A Dying Field, which the band self describes as “an incandescent collision of power-pop and skuzz,” is an ambitious guitar driven record that just might be the band’s finest work thus far. In and of itself, this is quite a statement considering the quality of both their debut LP, 2018’s Future Me Hates Me as well as their sophomore effort Jump Rope Gazersfrom 2020. Both of those releases found themselves firmly planted on countless year end lists and I’m fairly confident that Expert will share similar such accolades.
In this age of streaming, it has become somewhat of a trend where artists will pre-release several individual songs months in advance of a full length’s release. (Of course artists and record labels have been doing this since forever via the 45rpm single.) The trend now, however, is that those pre-releases are almost invariably the best two or three songs culled from the eventual album. So inevitably upon the full release, a feeling of disappointment sets in when one discovers that the other songs don’t live up to the initial hype of the early singles. With Expert In A Dying Field, The Beths further exacerbated this trend by sequencing their first three pre-released singles as the first three tracks on the LP. My initial thoughts upon seeing this was “uh oh.”
But my worries proved to be totally unfounded with Expert and the entire album delivers from start to finish. The title track (also the first single released earlier this year) is a bright poppy broken relationship love song smack dab in The Beths’ wheelhouse. It offers up what we’ve come to know and love from the band which of course is none other than lite, breezy, sunshine ridden musical bliss paired with anxiety laden lyrics, singer Elizabeth Stokes asking “How does it feel to be an expert in a dying field? How do you know it’s over when you can’t let go?”The next track on the album is the third and most recent single, “Knees Deep,” which again, displays the band’s tried and true formula of feel good power pop. The song itself I find quite ironic in that it’s about the song’s protagonist being too scared to take the proverbial leap, in this case the metaphoric dive into the water. (The song came paired with a music video which saw the band really take a leap and featured all four members bungee jumping.)
The irony however lies in the fact that this risky leap is exactly what The Beths have done. They’ve spent the better part of 2022 touring throughout North America and Europe, not only avoiding the large corporate mega festivals but also touring as headliners rather than being out there as a support act to a more widely known, more popular act which might boost their fan base. They’ve done all this and accomplished nothing but success in the process.
Most of Expert was recorded at guitarist Jonathan Pearce’s studio on Karangahape Road in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand) towards the end of 2021, with the band saying the the songs collected are autobiographical, but “they’re also character sketches of relationships—platonic, familial, romantic—and more importantly, their aftermaths. The shapes and ghosts left in absences. The question that hangs in the air: what do you do with how intimately versed you’ve become in a person, once they’re gone from your life?”
The band has also said that when recording Expert, they made a very cognizant decision to make an album which was meant to be heard live for “both the listeners and themselves.” And that they “wanted it to be fun—to hear, to play—in spite of the prickling anxiety throughout the lyrics, the fear of change and struggle to cope.” And listening to it, I can’t help but think the band was ready, they knew that the next time around things were going to be bigger for them. And no doubt with their upcoming tour in early 2023, they will be playing larger venues (once again) than they did this last time around. And to my ears Expert fits that very bill perfectly. The sixth song, “Head In The Clouds,” sounds anthemic and ready for a large stage with Pearce’s opening crunchy distorted guitar riff followed by Tristen Deck’s bouncy kick drum. Then about midway through we get Benjamin Sinclair with a classic hard driving pop punk bass line and of course all of this is swirling around while Stokes masterfully sings lines like “Yeah your head’s in the clouds but your soul’s in the dirt”.
We get more of this big pop punk sound in “I Told You I Was Afraid,” the penultimate track of the album. But this isn’t the only direction on which Stokes and The Beths take us on throughout the album. You can hear all kinds of influences popping up throughout the album. There’s some Nirvana (“A Passing Rain”), maybe some Taylor Swift (“Changing Weather”), and even a little Phoebe Bridgers (“2AM”). And in each and every case it’s not like you feel like The Beths are ripping any of these artists off. On the contrary, Stokes manages to use nuance and feel from each, and intone it into her own. So even when you hear a bit of Susanna Hoffs in a song like “When You Know You Know,” it doesn’t actually sound like Stokes trying to sound like Hoffs, but instead it’s The Beths taking that Bangles sound and bending and shaping it so that it very much becomes The Beths sound.
Expert In A Dying Field was recorded during the pandemic and fortunately New Zealand had a very strong grasp on things early on so the band was able to actually record together for the most part. Though as all things go with an unpredictable pandemic, eventually, things shifted and additional recording needed to be done separately, the band saying that they traded notes remotely for months and worked on arrangements alone. Additional finishing touches and mixing were then done while the band was here in the States touring and the recording process “culminated in a chaotic three-day studio mad-dash in Los Angeles. There, Expert finally became the record they were hearing in their heads.”
Ultimately, the finished product shows an album by a band that, while still growing with one another, and living in the midst of/adapting to very uncertain times, is still very comfortable with each other. They clearly know what they want and know how they want it to sound; they’ve managed to capture it perfectly on this newest offering.
Expert In A Dying Field will be released on 9/16 via Carpark Records. Their tour in support of it will hit New York in early March, 2023.
This show marked the third time I’ve been able to see New Zealand’s (power) pop sensations The Beths in the last six months. I could say that the old adage that “the third time’s the charm” works once again, but I would also say that the first two worked pretty fine as well (back in February at Webster Hall—see pics—as well as last month’s triumphant outdoor show at BRIC’s Celebrate Brooklyn Festival over in Prospect Park—see pics). To put it bluntly, The Beths are at the top of their game, the band just keeps getting better and better.
Friday’s setlist was the same as what they played in Brooklyn last month with the exception of a handful of changes in the order in which songs were played. But one would never have guessed that these were the same songs and effectively the same show which I’d witnessed then. That in and of itself is a special trait which many bands are not lucky enough to have. To put on a show over and over and to have your audience feel that each one is distinct and different from the previous is a goal which I would think every band shoots for (and not many attain).
For a band to attain that feeling of uniqueness first off, can only happen if the band is truly enjoying what they are doing and exhibiting this joy on stage. And let me just say that The Beths appear to be having a lot of fun traipsing across our fine(?) country. It is quite clear that they are humbled by the success they are experiencing here. They’re traveling lightly just as most fledgling bands do…no tour entourage, no tour bus, no equipment truck. No stagehands to do the load in and load out day in day out. It’s just the four of them, Liz Stokes (vocals and guitar), Jonathan Pearce (background vocals and guitar), Tristan Deck (background vocals and drums) and Ben Sinclair (background vocals and bass) doing it all.
And while we hear horror stories of life on the road and the grind it can become, this crew from Auckland seem to be enjoying the shit out of it. One needs to look no further than to watch the new video to their recent single, “Knees Deep” to understand how much fun they are having. While the video itself was shot back home in New Zealand, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that the band took time off at some point between shows to go bungee jumping off some bridge somewhere in the hinterlands of the US.
Another example of how much fun is being had by the crew is Pearce’s “Breakfast Blog.” Initially started as a tour blog, it slowly but surely morphed into a diary of goings on especially in the realm of breakfast foods enjoyed each day. All in all, I highly recommend it, as it’s quite an enjoyable read not only for the food porn but also to appreciate the goings on of a young band touring in a foreign country.
Having arrived in the US back in early February, playing their first post pandemic US show in Seattle on February 5th, they’ve been touring non stop since. First here in the States, then for a brief set of three shows in Australia and then off to Europe before a brief return to New Zealand in mid June. One month off and then back to the States where they’ve been crisscrossing the country virtually non stop. What makes what The Beths are doing all the more special is that here they are a relatively unknown band from New Zealand (in the big scheme of things) and they’re playing headlining shows night in and night out to packed rooms across the country. They’re not doing it as openers on a bigger band’s coattails and they’re not doing it by jumping on the big festival circuit either. Yeah, they’ve played a handful of fests, but for the most part they were smaller niche festivals and not the humongous corporate behemoths. So here they are, The Beths, doing it on their own terms, having an absolute blast doing it AND kicking ass from city to city.
As I said earlier, Friday’s show at The Lanes seemed different than my previous ones and I attribute this especially to what felt like rearrangements to many of the songs in the set. Not major changes but subtle adjustments just to make things feel fresh. Another thing which stood out and made me take notice were the vocals and harmonies. The time on the road hasn’t taken its toll on the band’s voices one bit. Liz Stokes sounds absolutely amazing and the background vocals actually sound better than ever with Pearce, Deck and Sinclair’s harmonies sounding jaw droppingly sharp.
The Beths at Asbury Lanes
Another thing which separated Asbury from all of my previous Beths shows was the abundance of teenage and pre-teen girls/young women in the audience (specifically in the front row, up against the rail). A Beths crowd, in my previous experiences, is usually a decent mix of millennials and graying Gen-Xers trying to prove their relevance in today’s music scene. While this certainly was still the case at The Lanes on Friday, the addition of those young girls, each and every one, singing along to every single word that came out of Liz Stokes’ mouth brought a great sense of purpose to the evening. This was different from The Linda Lindas and the throngs of very young girls at their shows. At those shows the band and the youngsters in the crowd are pretty much peers and contemporaries. In the case of The Beths, while the band is certainly not long in the tooth, they are well past their teenage years. It’s safe to say that Stokes serves as a role model to these young fans through her words, music and most of all her accomplishments. And that is something really cool and refreshing to get to see.
In closing, I apologize for coming across as a super fan boy, but I honestly feel like right now there isn’t much The Beths can’t do. A band which is succeeding with almost everything they touch and finding this success on their own terms no less. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they’ll be around these parts until early 2023 when they’ll be returning to Brooklyn, playing Brooklyn Steel on March 2nd. But there is good news in that their third full length studio album, Expert In A Dying Field, will be dropping on September 16th via Carpark and judging from the 3 singles released thus far, it is going to certainly live up to previous releasesJump Rope Gazers and Future Me Hates Me.
Scroll down for setlist, fan shot videos and pics of the show (photos by Ray Rusinak)
Setlist: Out of Sight, Knees Deep, A Real Thing, Just Shy of Sure, You Wouldn’t Like Me, Expert in a Dying Field, Great No One, Jump Rope Gazers, Uptown Girl, Don’t Go Away, Dying to Believe, Silence Is Golden, Future Me Hates Me, You Are A Beam of Light, Little Death
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