PLAYGROUND BOSTON

Well, for better or for worse, we’re back in Boston now. What a crazy night to end things on. We had PGB Henchmen running all over Commercial Street, trying to get the best and most widespread coverage we could. I caught a bunch of new bands in addition to a couple I’d already seen… and I can honestly say this night was by far the most fun I had all week. We’ll have a complete festival recap for you posted up in the next couple of days, but for now here’s what went down on Saturday night.

Click for recaps of Day 1, Day 2, Day 2 continued, and Day 3.

Venue: Governor Bradford

Scene: Things got a little heated down at the Gov on Saturday. There were issues all night with the restaurant upstairs complaining that the music downstairs was too loud and bothering the customers, eventually culminating in the venue cutting off all shows until food service upstairs was over. A few bands got screwed as a result, but I feel especially bad for the Wynotts. I heard they were pushed back twice due to sound and scheduling issues, then as they were setting up for the third time they got the bad news that all music at the venue was postponed. Rather than stick around and play a shorter set later, they decided to just say fuck it. Ah well, I’ll be looking to catch them back in Boston as soon as I can (August 8th @ All Asia!). I did get there in time to catch local P-Town favorites The Antibodies prior to everything getting shut down though…

Bands: We came downstairs at the Gov right as The Antibodies were taking the stage. They were so loud, and so angry, and the crowd ate up every last second of it. As we mentioned earlier, the local P-Town bands were getting the best crowds of the festival, and The Antibodies were no exception. They were numerous, they were devoted, and they were rowdy as hell – people moshing all over the place, screaming along to the words, and generally rocking out for the whole set. The Antibodies were mostly a 4-chords-of-fury type of band, and probably the fastest of the entire festival – good old 80’s style punk fucking rock. Tony on lead vox had a pissed off sound caught somewhere between a growl and a scream that made me want to break something… unfortunately the bartenders at the Gov were a lot bigger than me so I kind of had to scratch that idea. All in all I liked their sound though, and I’m looking forward to them putting their new CD out sometime in the next month or two.

Venue: The Vixen

Scene: The Vixen was pretty dead all night, to be honest. There were a bunch of locals kicking around, dancing their asses off and really getting into all the bands, and there was a bunch of traffic from the other bands playing the festival who had some time off, but other than that, not too much of a crowd.

Bands: It’s really a shame there was such a small audience at the Vixen when Sidewalk Driver took the stage, because I think they might have had the most memorable set of the entire festival. I’ve  been wanting to catch these guys for a while – apart from the fact that three of the members are also in PGB favorites Red Red Rockit, I had heard that they put on an extremely gimmicky (in a good way) and entertaining set. They certainly didn’t disappoint. I walked in to see a band rockin’ out on stage and a large bald dude in a blue silk bathrobe, fake eyelashes, and the most sparkly shoes I’ve ever seen dancing around on the floor of the stage. Honestly, I just assumed he was a P-Town local. Then I saw the mic in his hand – turns out he was the fucking lead singer! Check out the pictures, words alone cannot possibly describe this spectacle. Throughout the set he busted out cannons that shot fuzzy poofballs and glittery confetti into the crowd as well. Despite all the gimmicks and blatant clamoring for attention, this guy was a hell of a singer, and the band pulled off a jaw-dropping performance. They were tight, they were talented, and I loved hearing guitarist Jared Egan lay down some ridiculous solos as Tad McKitterick’s vocals soared, displaying his incredibly vast range.

Sidewalk Driver’s final song was perhaps the most powerful moment of the week. Tad’s flamboyance sputtered out as he disclosed to the crowd that the final song was a request from Tim Frustration of the New Frustrations. He requested a tribute to the late Mike Frustration, who I’m deeply remorseful to say took his own life only days before the beginning of this festival. With that, Sidewalk Driver came out with one of the most moving, soulful, and absolutely beautiful versions of David Bowie’s “Rock n Roll Suicide” that has EVER been played – anywhere. I’ll stand by this broad statement, no question. Raw emotion dripped from McKitterick’s voice as he sang this memorial to a fallen friend from what seemed to be the deepest recess of his heart. As the song wound down Tim Frustration walked up on stage and solemnly hugged his thanks to McKitterick – truly a heartfelt moment. At the close of the song McKitterick threw the mic down and ran off stage into the green room – clearly choked up and unable to keep his stage persona. The entire crowd – which had filled out since the beginning of the set – was stunned into silence for a good ten seconds after the close of the song before breaking out into an awestruck standing ovation. It was clear that I had just bore witness to one of the most heartrending performances I’ve ever seen, and I think all in attendance would most likely agree.

Sidewalk Driver is currently working on their debut full-length that they plan to release later this year (they have an EP out now, but it’s no longer in print). You can catch them in town downstairs at the Cantab Lounge in Central Square this Saturday, August 1st – I’d highly recommend checking them out.

I came back to the Vixen later that night in time to check out The New Alibi’s set on the main stage. Noah mentioned in his Friday recap that their previous show at the festival was a little sloppy, to say the least, so I was looking forward to them tightening up and kicking some ass for their second set. They were certainly better on Saturday, maybe a couple less beers at the bar beforehand, but I’ve seen them absolutely kill it multiple times when they’ve played in Boston so I guess I might have set my expectations a little too high. Still, they put in a high-energy, incredibly fun effort, and the crowd was definitely responsive to their infectious rock. They were certainly handcuffed by the sound guy during their set – for every other show at The Vixen he’d been great, but for whatever reason he completely shit the bed for the New Alibis. Julie’s bass was way too loud, Paul’s guitar was way too quiet, and you could barely hear Drew’s vocals until the very end. They also had a bass amp malfunction about halfway through their set which caused a delay that cut out a few songs from the setlist – too bad, the crowd had been really rocking out up until this point. The band didn’t let this faze them though, encouraging the venue staff to bust out every stage light they had in the place, and did the rest of their songs up in fun, furious, and (considering we were in P-Town) somewhat fabulous fashion. They finished out their set so strongly that the crowd roared for an encore – and for the first time I’d seen all festival, they were granted one! I was happy, as they came out with one of my favorites, “Angel Over Me,” in impressive fashion – Paul shredding up the guitar while Jesse absolutely manhandled his drum kit. I’m looking forward to catching these guys again as soon as possible. Unfortunately it looks like they have nothing scheduled at this time, but as always, we’ll keep you posted.

The New Alibis  – “Dragged” – Hard Promises

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Venue: Old Colony Tap

Scene: The OC was packed on Saturday! Seems like all the fishermen and bikers who had been frequenting this place throughout the week finally came around to the idea of the festival and were really getting into it! The crowd certainly wasn’t rowdy, but they were hollering out requests, nodding along to the tunes, and generally creating a great atmosphere for live music – BIG change from the last time I came in here on Thursday night.

Bands: I walked by the ‘Tap and saw that Dave Crespo had snuck in and grabbed an open slot on the mic. I had actually been trying to catch Dave’s sets with his band The Afterparty throughout the week, but of course I kept missing out – so I was happy to throw out my cigarette and run into the OC to catch the rest of this acoustic jam! Dave, normally a bassist, was on acoustic guitar, and was accompanied by the Afterparty backup singer, Cary Wells. They were also joined on electric guitar by a guy they had only met on Wednesday and had invited up to jam with them (sorry, never caught his name, but he was definitely talented). By the sound of it, I would have thought this guy had been playing with Dave for months – they had a great dynamic, the mystery guitarist playing jazzy and understated electric solos over Dave’s smooth acoustic chords. Wells chipped in on most songs with a smoky, sultry voice that seemed to fit the ambiance of the venue perfectly. I was really enjoying the music, and by the sound of the great rapport the band developed with the crowd, everyone else was too. Dave Crespo and the Afterparty will have the full band on hand for their set at the Middle East Upstairs on August 11th.

Venue: Good Times

Scene: I had to end my night at Good Times. We started here, only seemed right to come around full circle and finish off the festival drinking beers with Katie at the most relaxed and comfortable venue P-Town Rocks had to offer. It also didn’t hurt that there were some excellent bands closing out the night there. Good Times once again was pretty packed, and this time even the owner was in a good mood – everyone was having fun on Saturday night!

Bands: We got down to Good Times just as Midatlantic was getting ready to go on. I had caught these guys in Boston back in May and was really impressed with their set, but they were missing their keyboard player back then so I was looking forward to seeing how the full band sounded. Midatlantic’s sound is hard to describe, but impossibly catchy and enjoyable. The best I can do is probably to call it “power indie dance rock,” but I’m not even sure if I know what the hell that means. The drummer was nasty – he took what would be a pretty basic dance-ish drum line and threw in enough fills and hi-hat destruction to make it absolutely rock. The bassist got a nice clean sound out of his instrument, working very well with the keys to drive each song. The guitarist might have been my favorite part of the band – he just laid down spacey, almost detached hooks over the bass and keys to give their music an ethereal effect – very cool. Add to this singer Mike Coen’s powerful voice and imposing stage presence (even in a tiny club like Good Times) and you’ve got a complete package that is not to be missed. I think it might be physically impossible to resist bobbing your head along with Midatlantic’s songs. I was very impressed by how tight their set was, especially considering they debuted about 4 or 5 new songs which haven’t gotten too much attention in the practice space as of yet.

The best part of their set came close to the end, and actually involved a power outage… Coen was out among the crowd leading everyone in a chorus of ‘oh oh oh waoooooh’s’ when all of a sudden a fuse blew and the entire club was left without power – no mic, no instruments, no lights. Only the drummer was still playing – and he wasn’t about to stop. As the drummer furiously kept up the beat, Coen continued to lead the crowd’s refrain for a good 2 or 3 minutes or so until the song ended. It’s little things like this that made the festival great – sure there were problems, but as long as the bands just rolled with it everyone still had a great time. Midatlantic’s next show is August 22nd in City Hall Plaza as part of the Boston Greenfest.

We closed out our time at the P-Town Rocks festival by catching the entirety of The Luxury’s 2nd set of the event. The band took the stage a little strung out from a few straight days of drinking, but ready to rock for sure. The band spontaneously decided to revisit their CD release party for this set and play the entirety of their latest release, In the Wake of What Won’t Change, front to back. It was great to hear all these new songs performed live – the dynamic was so much more intense in a small room than it was at the release party at the Paradise. On the one hand, you had this epic performance on a huge stage with a powerful sound system, crazy lighting, and amazing videos being played on each side of the stage; whereas now you had the band playing ground level to an unruly drunken mob of friends in what looked to be someone’s basement. It was very cool to see the band rock out with the same set in such vastly different environments – and it certainly helps that they absolutely killed it both times!

The Luxury – “Getaway Car” – In the Wake of What Won’t Change

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The sound mix during their set made things interesting, but everything got fixed up as the show went on. Jason Dunn’s vocals were way too quiet to start out, but after a little jostling from the crowd the sound guy got right on it and brought it up to an acceptable level. Bassist Justin Day was resplendent in his yellow feather boa, and turned in what was probably the strongest effort I’ve heard from him in all the times I’ve caught this band. (must have been the boa) Good thing too, because his bass levels were jacked incredibly high! The Luxury consistently put on one of the tightest and most energetic sets of any Boston band, and this night was no exception. What a great way to cap off an incredible long weekend of music! The Luxury’s next Boston appearance will be on Saturday, September 19th, on the main stage at the Boston Freedom Rally – don’t miss it!

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