If It's Too Loud...

2026 is a rough year for festivals with many of our favorites either taking the year off or calling it a day after 2025. Nice, a Fest took 2025 off, which had us a little worried, but they are back for 2026 and returning to Davis Square! This year's edition will run from July 24-26 and take place at The Rockwell, Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater, and Dragons Lair. Of course, the important thing is the music, and Nice, a Fest once again have an amazing all local line up with many, many of our favorites. It will feature Battlemode, Class President, Coral Moons, Downtown Boys, Evan Greer, Gymshorts, JVK, Landowner, Mal Devisa, Meg Elsier, Perennial, Pinklids, Rick Rude, and a ton more! This is always one of my favorite musical weekends of the year, and attending is strongly recommended! Nice, a Fest takes place in Davis Square, Somerville from July 24-26. You can get more information and tickets here .

Last year's Boston Bitdown was one of my unexpected musical highlights of 2025. I was only able to make it one night last year, but I was blown away by how diverse a festival of chiptune bands could be, and how much fun I had. I wanted to make it to more dates in 2026, but life and family obligations prevented me from taking in as much of the festival as I wanted. I made it on Saturday to bounce between Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater and The Rockwell. I wasn't able to take everything in, but what I saw was fun and great. The first artist I saw wasn't chiptune at all, but still fit in with the vibe of the festival. Boston Typewriter Orchestra are one of those artists I've been meaning to check out, and Saturday night was my chance. They're a band that consists of all members playing typewriters. Yes, virtually every sound coming from the stage is coming from an old fashioned, non-electric typewriter. It's the sound from the keys, drumming on the back, bel...

I miss radio. I originally wanted to work in radio, but got sidetracked by a film major. Being able to choose exactly what song or album you want to hear at all times is great, but I miss the random selection of radio, and I really miss having music curated by a person and not an algorithm. Luckily, BumbleBee Radio exists. Hosted by Kristen Eck, it's a throwback to our favorite Boston radio stations, and if you like what we do here at If It's Too Loud..., there's an awful lot of crossover. BumbleBee Radio held their five year anniversary party Friday night at Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater, and since it was also The Peppermint Kicks' album release show, I couldn't resist. First up was Smitt E. Smitty & The Fezztones. The Boston based collective is led by the legendary Smitt E. Smitty. Their blend of garage rock is completely unique to them. It's glammed up and insanely fun, with a giant band to produce their sound. Their songs have a great sense of h...

Every time Superchunk releases an album, we all assume it can't be anywhere near as good as the last one. The band has been around since 1989, and surely they have to eventually start releasing mediocre albums, right? Last month saw the release of Songs in the Key of Yikes , their thirteenth album, and it's great. With a new album comes a tour, and when they came to the Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater, I knew I couldn't miss it. What's amazing about Songs in the Key of Yikes  was how well these new songs stood up with the decades old classics. The album has only been out for a few weeks, but "Is It Making You Feel Something?" and "Everybody Dies" got just as favorable reaction as classics. What's truly impressive about Superchunk's albums is how a song like 2018's "What a Time to Be Alive" has become as much as a favorite as 1994's "Driveway to Driveway." Can that truly be said of any of our other 90's h...

I've been a huge fan of Benjamin Booker for over a decade now. His self-titled debut was my top album of 2014, and I've been impatiently waiting to hear what he would do after 2017's Witness. It was a long wait, but LOWER , released earlier this year is a strong contender for 2025's album of the year, and honestly gets better with each listen. Once I heard he was playing Crystal Ballroom, I knew I had to see what he would be like live in 2025. Booker took the stage with a drummer and Kenny Segal on roughly five different types of keyboards and DJ equipment. The trio formed a triangle on stage and started off with a sample about playing music for yourself, and to make sure you enjoy how it sounds. That was obviously a message to the audience, as Booker's current sound is virtually unlike anything he's played before... or really anyone else has done before. If anything, Booker has become an even more amazing performer since I last saw him at TT the Bear's back...

Photo by Ken Sears Like just about everyone, I absolutely adored "Foundations" when it came out in 2017. At that point, I was more of a casual Kate Nash fan, and she admittedly fell off my radar shortly after that. Earlier this year, it was announced that she had signed to Kill Rock Stars. Being a 90's indie rock snob, that got my attention and I checked out 9 Sad Symphonies . That was excellent enough to get me to dive deeper into her catalog, and became more of a fan. Seeing as she was playing Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater, I knew I simply could not miss the show. Any expectations I had for Kate Nash's live show were blown away by actually seeing her perform. Nash attacked that stage with an energy usually reserved for hardcore bands. She barely stood still for the first five or six songs as she bounded across the stage. For "Misery," she hopped off the stage and into the crowd for basically the entire song. Her energy was matched by her band, who...

A Place to Bury Strangers are a band I've been a fan of for years now, but have just never gotten around to seeing them live. Their live shows are the stuff of legend, with reports of pure chaos breaking out at shows, and just giant amounts of pure noise. I'm happy to report that the legends are true. Opening the show Thursday night was JJUUJJUU, a band I have some familiarity with. They played a raucous set of noise rock that was still rooted in the moist basic rules of rock song structure. They had a bit of an almost blues rock sound, but mired down in just pure, loud, abrasive noise. It was in your face, but in an almost polite way. Their live show was much louder than the recordings I associate them with, which are much more chill and lovely. They were a fun rediscovery. Suuns played next. They reminded me of early Mogwai without the extreme highs and lows. Their songs danced between being lovely and abrasive, but like they were trying to find the middle ground. And they di...

Photo by Bella Peterson March 11, 2020 was the night everything changed. Tom Hanks announced he tested positive for COVID. The NBA and NHL cancelled their seasons. Travel to Europe was banned. All of that happened while I was at an Against Me! show in Holyoke, which led me to abandon my spot near the front of the stage to the very back corner of the venue to get as far away from everyone as possible. It was obviously a bad experience, and I've wanted a do-over ever since. Sunday night, I finally got my chance when Laura Jane Grace played the Crystal Ballroom in Somerville. Playing as the newly christened Laura Jane Grace & the Mississippi Medicals, this is going to be a hard show to write about as it's going to be impossible to not overly gush about it to an embarrassing amount. Joined by drummer Mikey Erg and bassist Matt Patton, the trio took the stage with some of the most tremendous energy I've ever seen. Based on some of Grace's solo releases, I wasn't sure...

Glixen Photo by Ken Sears It's truly tempting to make a joke about going to see three Gs on Thursday night. Since I discovered Glixen earlier this year, I've been swept up in adoration for the Arizona shoegaze band, and wondered if they'd make it all the way up to New England for a show. Once I saw they were touring with Glitterer, I knew I had to check them out at Crystal Ballroom. Plus, local phenoms Gollylagging were slated to open, and I've been meaning to check them out for a while. Gollylagging Photo by Ken Sears Gollylagging opened the show with a short burst of a set. I've been hearing about how great they are live, and they did not disappoint. They played a high energy variety of indie rock with a slightly aggressive edge. It was loud, and noisy, and set the tone for the evening perfectly. They definitely had fans in attendance and won over those of us not familiar with them. They even inspired a short mosh pit at one point. It was the kind of local support...

December is an incredibly busy month for all of us. It's hard to make time for live music or nights out with all of the obligations, family time, etc. Normally we wouldn't implore you to go out on a Saturday night in mid-December, but this Saturday is an exception. First, Let's Rock Cancer is a great cause and is benefitting The Cancer Care Equity Center at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Second, the line up is amazing. You get the vintage garage rock of Muck & The Mires, Vapors of Morphine keeping the spirit of Morphine alive, the killer power pop of The Chelsea Curve, the eclectic weirdo sound of Muzzins, the fusion sound of The Ray Liriano Experience, and cover band Uncivil Servants. Plus, Henry Santoro of WGBH (and ex-WFNX) is the MC for the evening. The whole thing goes down this Saturday night at Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater, with tickets starting at $25. For more information on Let's Rock Cancer and to buy tickets, head on over to the Crystal Ballroom...

Photo by Ken Sears I'm fairly new to the world of CHAI fandom, but I had been hearing great things about their live shows. Mainly that they're a blast, and this has been a year of going to see bands just for the fun factor, so I knew I had to check out CHAI when they swung through Boston on their current tour. Their music is much more pop oriented than I normally go to see, so I was unsure what to expect. What I got was an evening of unexpected pure joy. CHAI are a nearly impossible band to describe. They're a band of four Japanese women who wear matching outfits and do low key costume changes throughout the show (mostly something like removing a jacket or mask at the same time.) For some pop songs all four members were singing and dancing a choreographed routine, for others they were thrashing out on instruments in a punk frenzy. I've seen CHAI labelled indie rock, I've seen them labelled pop, but live they are this joyous amalgam of genres that should never be pla...

The Boston music community was rocked by the sudden passing of Justine Covault on June 8. Justine formed Justine and The Unclean in 2016 and had just released the fantastic The Signal Light on June 2 (and played a great album release party that night at Faces in Malden .) She was also in Justine's Black Threads and the founder of Red On Red Records in 2020, which quickly became one of our absolute favorite local indie labels. This Friday the 6th the Boston rock community comes together to celebrate Justine's life. It's the kind of line up that I wish was coming together for any other reason. The Unclean is playing with a bunch of guest vocalists (Andrea Gillis, Linnea Herzog, Linda Veins, Linda Bean Pardee, JoEllen Saunders Yannis, Lynda Mandolyn, and Melissa Gibbs), Tom Baker's Double Down, The Pelvic Thrust, The Bags, The Black Threads with guests, The Croaks (featuring Justine's daughter Haley Wood), and Quest for Tuna. The evening will be emceed by Rum Bar Recor...

I first stumbled on Bombino at the 2013 Newport Folk Festival. If I remember correctly, I had carved out that time to eat as I wasn't familiar with any of the artists playing that timeslot. Instead of eating, I was sucked into Bombino's performance and vowed to see him again as soon as I could. Unfortunately, it took ten years, but it was worth the wait. Playing with no opener, Bombino took the stage with a five piece band and played the first few songs with an acoustic guitar. It was a perfect way to ease the audience into his style of Tuareg music that is much closer to folk. After those three songs, the electric guitar came out, and the show truly took off. His guitar playing is completely mesmerizing. Every moment of every song was perfect and spellbinding, but the instrumental parts where Bombino got to just play guitar were absolutely transcendent. It makes zero sense that he doesn't get listed as one of the truly great guitarists of today, because I've seen very ...

I came to Ted Leo fandom embarrassingly late. I somehow missed him early on, and even when I knew him by name, it took a while for me to give his music a shot. Despite being a fan, I had never seen him perform with the Pharmacists, so when a show at one of my favorite Boston venues, Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater, was announced, I knew I wanted to go. When Everyone Asked About You was added as an opener just days before the show, that was just an added bonus. Despite missing Everyone Asked About You's initial brief 90's run and only discovering them a few months back, their music connected with me as if I had first heard it back then and instantly gave me a sense of nostalgia for a band I had never heard of. I was annoyed that they scheduled two New York dates but nothing in New England, because of course a band from Little Rock, Arkansas should prioritize a Boston show. When they first started their set, they were playing a little sloppy and loose. In an endearing way,...

Photo by Pooneh Ghana It's only been three years since I discovered BODEGA opening for Jon Spencer + The HITmakers at Great Scott in February 2019, but it feels much, much longer. In that time it seems like the Brooklyn based post punks have played in Boston a bunch of times, but it's never worked out for me to see them. Luckily that streak was broken last Friday when they played one of my new favorite places to see a show: Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater! I did not think I was going to like Boston Cream when they first started playing. Melanie Bernier came out miming guitar on a broom, and slowly each member entered playing their instrument. The band features two singers (the second one is Peach S. Goodrich) mostly doing minor synchronized dance moves and just seemed a little too gimmicky for my taste. But, the band does feature three members of Hallelujah the Hills (drummer Ryan Connelly, bass player Joe Marrett, and guitarist Nicholas Ward (making this his fourth band...

In its second year, Nice, a Fest took over The Rockwell and Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater for three night (four if you count the "after party" on Sunday). I wasn't able to go for all three (or four), so I made it for just Saturday. And seeing how I couldn't pull off twelve hours of live music at my advanced age, I made it a late afternoon/early evening start time. So apologies to all the bands I didn't see! Here are my five favorites from Saturday at Nice, a Fest, in no particular order. Circus Trees This one came out of nowhere for me. Circus Trees are a band out of Marlborough, MA made up of three sisters. Saturday night they had a replacement drummer, and they announced that they would be playing sad music before they started, which, they did. But Circus Trees are hardly a mopey band. Sure, their songs do have mopey parts, but it's more like if shoegaze was really, really heavy as well as beautiful. Their quiet parts were shockingly lovely, but whe...

Photo by Tonje Thilesen Wednesday night I saw Paul McCartney play Fenway Park in front of almost forty thousand people, playing some of the most well known and beloved songs of all time. Despite being almost eighty years old, he played for almost three hours and wowed the crowd with fantastic songs, light shows, videos, fireworks, etc. Anything I went to see immediately after should have been a massive disappointment, but when the person you're seeing next is Ezra Furman, being disappointed is impossible. Playing in front of a sold out crowd of five hundred, the show was just Ezra Furman solo with a borrowed guitar. As much love as the crowd showed McCartney the night before, Furman was shown just as much on a smaller scale. The crowd hung on every single word she sang and spoke, completely erasing my fears as they had been quite chatty at times during the openers. Words like enigmatic or captivating or mesmerizing don't do Furman's live show justice. She reminded me of art...

Crystal Ballroom is a fairly new venue that opened up within the Somerville Theater that seems to be more of a performance space than a live music venue. They've hosted concerts, but also burlesque and other performances. Based on what has been booked there, the promoters seem more concerned with art and quality than just getting a Sublime cover band once a month to sell the place out. This was very apparent on Saturday with the triple bill of Snapped Ankles, Gloin, and Muzzins. We've written about Muzzins before, and they were the main reason I was in attendance for this show. Despite having only two songs out, the band had a pretty die hard fanbase show up for being a brand new band. The three piece led by Rayna Jhaveri were a perfect fit to open this triple bill of oddball bands, with their own sound taking pieces of alt-rock, electronic, funk, hip hop, jazz, and punk into one cohesive sound. Their stage presence belied their relative newness, and they played like a band tha...