If It's Too Loud...

We don't normally do posts for individual shows, but sometimes we feel the need to make sure you're aware of upcoming events.  Bikini Kill Photo by Lance Bangs First is Bikini Kill returning to Roadrunner on September 22. I was in attendance for their 2023 show at Roadrunner, and it was even better than I imagined. It was my first time seeing the riot grrrl legends, and there was something about seeing those songs live that was much more emotional than I expected. (I'm sure some of it was the heightened emotions coming out of COVID, too...) This time around they'll be joined by Providence political punks Downtown Boys, and how can you say no to that double bill? You can find more on this show here .  Photo by Robert Fagan October 26 sees L7's  The Last Hurrah Tour come to Boston. It's L7's farewell tour, and their first since bassist Jennifer Finch's tragic death earlier this year. You never know how final farewell tours actually are, but L7 has never se...

Once again, Something in the Way took over Roadrunner in Boston for two days of killer live music. Twelve bands took over two stages on Sunday, with a surprisingly diverse line up of shoegaze, alt-country, hardcore, emo, slowcore, and more. For all the people that complain about people being on their phones for entire shows, they need to check out Something in the Way, which saw an audience mostly made up of teens and twentysomethings moshing, stage diving, and crowd surfing for hours. It's a much needed relief from the tail end of winter, and the freezing cold. Here were our highlights of Sunday. Glixen Phoenix's Glixen opened up the show and were the perfect way to ease the crowd into a day of mostly heavy music. Taking the stage at 1:30 pm, their version of heavy shoegaze got the crowd ready without being too heavy as we got prepared for nine hours of music. I've been praising Glixen for a while now, and their live show simply can't be beat. Drummer Keire Johnson sti...

Being a fan of live music, I love music festivals. It's a great way to see a bunch of bands all at once, from long time favorites I've seen multiple times to bands I've never gotten around to seeing to bands I've never heard of. Unfortunately, I live in New England, and music festivals tend to only happen a few months out of the year. When Run for Cover and The Bowery Presents announced Something in the Way, I immediately wanted to go. An all day, indoor, multiple stage festival happening right when winter starts sucking fully? Sign us up. Here are my highlights for the Sunday edition of Something in the Way! Mini Trees One thing I liked about the Sunday edition of Something in the Way was how it seemed to focus on hardcore/punk bands and shoegaze. I walked in towards the end of Portrayal of Guilt's set, which was quite heavy and screamy. The first full set I saw was Mini Trees, who are a self-described "sad dream pop" band. Mini Trees music is gorgeous. I...

I'm not a huge one for electronic music. Sure, I had my techno phase in the late 90's along with everyone else, but it's a genre I'm typically lacking in these days. However, I've been trying to get out of my comfort zone a bit more lately, so when I had the chance to see Fever Ray and Christeene at Roadrunner last Friday, I made the trip into Boston to see what all the fuss was about. Christeene was an experience to say the least. Christeene is a drag character of Paul Soileau, and a live show was a spectacle as much as it was a show. After the first song, Christeene declared that she was there to "put fire" up the crowd's "tight unstretched buttholes," and that just set the tone for the rest of the set. Christeene was accompanied by keyboard and sax, and the set was just pure anarchy. I was reminded of artists like Divine, GG Allin, Peaches, and Rammstein at different points, as Christeene stormed around the stage and removing an article of...

Photo by Ken Sears I've been a fan of Bikini Kill for what seems like forever, but for some reason I've never gotten a chance to see them live. The Boston date has been moved, cancelled, changed venues, and rescheduled seemingly into oblivion over the past three years, but it finally happened this past Sunday night. Bikini Kill in 2023 should be a pure nostalgia act, and the crowd should be filled with fans in their forties and fifties reliving their high school and college years, and there was that. But a huge percentage of the crowd was comprised of teenagers and college students who just recently discovered Bikini Kill and were seeing their new idols for the first time. And Bikini Kill delivered. From the opening cry of "Revolution girl style now!" in "Double Dare Ya," they blasted through twenty three songs that are all classics at this point. The younger crowd injected an energy into the entire experience for everyone involved. Kathleen Hanna was deligh...