The fact that we are a third of the way done with March and this is my first concert of 2024 is a travesty. I will be actively trying to right this wrong for the rest of the year, but I so glad I finally got some live music in!
This is now probably at least the fourth time I’ve seen Joywave, and it’s the second time I’ve seen them as a headliner! Just last year I got to see them in Pittsburgh, and lord knows they have enough solid material to be headlining even more shows. And if the fans in attendance were any indication, they want more headlining shows, too! With the promise of a new album and tour coming in the fall, it’s likely going to happen more and more, so I’ll be on the lookout for a date nearby because they just sound so dang good! Seriously, most of what they perform sounds identical to the recordings.
Anyway, the show opened with two interesting bands. Truthfully, the first opener Solon, was just not good. The band itself was fine, but the singer’s vocals were just not it. Even with auto tune on a couple of tracks only made them bearable. It was a slow thirty minutes. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the second opening band Clibbus, was so, so weird. The aesthetic was bad 80s, but the grooves were funky even if the distorted vocals kind of brought it down a notch. I think these guys only got through four songs because each of them were at least ten minutes a piece. I was ready for them to be done by the end, but it was interesting to see that singer setting up Joywave’s stuff immediately after.
Joywave themselves opened the show strong with “Somebody New.” Then they just kept bleeding into fan favorite after fan favorite. I think Daniel said it best when he said headlining shows are the best because you can bust out songs that haven’t seen the light of day in years. They did this with a few songs on the setlist, and I will say as someone who is not a diehard Joywave fan, I didn’t recognize them, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t bops (as the kids say). I was just happy to hear “Half Your Age” and “It’s a Trip!,” and of course even the dad chaperoning his daughter knew of ‘Dangerous.” They’d be remiss to not end the set with “Destruction,” so they did just that! After peeking at the previous night’s setlist, I knew we weren’t getting an encore, and I really don’t know what they would have put there besides “Destruction,” so to the dude who was supremely pissed behind me leaving the show: chill.
It was a great show at a cool new venue I hope to be visiting more frequently this year, but I hope this is also the start to a fruitful year of live music!