I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: March 8, 2018] Mal Blum

I saw Mal Blum and the Blums back in March of last year.  They were great and so much fun.  I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a band laugh so much, both with each other and with the audience.

They opened for Jessica Lea Mayfield.  I got the impression that the band is now called simply Mal Blum (no more Blums).

Since that performance I have followed Mal’s transgender surgery and recovery on Instagram.  I thought it was really cool that they posted as much as they did to show anyone in need what the process was like.

And now Mal is back.  Mal said they love coming to Jersey (they are based in NYC, although two of the guys are from NJ).  And they joked that they were channeling their inner Springsteen.

The band was almost all the same as last time.  Barrett Lindgren was on bass.  I didn’t notice this last time, but he is about a foot and a half taller than Mal.  His bass was excellent.  On a couple of songs he played a single note that resonated perfectly in the space.  On lead was Audrey Zee Whitesides and she was great.  This time she was on the far side of the stage so I didn’t get to witness her wild guitar playing, but there were a few songs where she totally wailed.  At one point she rocked so hard she pulled the cable out of her pedals.

The band had a new drummer this time.  Ricardo Lagomasino who is Lucy Dacus’ drummer, played with them.  He even did a complete outfit change for the different bands.

Mal’s songs are terrific–catchy melodies and darkly comic self-reflective lyrics, like on “You Look a Lot Like Me“.  Mal plays solo shows, but I think there’s something extra fun about having the band.  Because when the more punky songs take off, the whole band rocks like crazy.

Like last time, I’m not sure what the songs are called (although I did get Mal’s last album You Look a Lot Like Me and recognized a few songs from it.  But Mal also told us, although they weren’t supposed to, that there will be a new album coming out in the summer.

It’s the rules now, you release a single and you’re not supposed to tell anyone that there’s a new album coming a few months later.

And they certainly couldn’t tell us about the upcoming shows yet!  One of the new songs, “I Don’t Want to So I Won’t” was wonderfully fun.

About midway through the set Mal said they were supposed to play a couple of solo songs.  But they wanted the energy up.  And Mal said that they do enough solo shows, so since the rest of her buds are onstage, they should just stay there.  And rock they did.

One of my favorite Mal songs is “Cool Party.”  It’s super catchy, but at the end, the lyrics go:

I had to laugh that this is now the fourth time I’ve seen Audrey Zee Whitesides play live.  She obviously played with Mal last time.  So that’s two times that I’ve seen her rock out on the guitar.  That evening when Mal played before Jessica Lea Mayfield, Audrey played bass for Jessica.  And then just recently she toured on bass with Speedy Ortiz and I got to see them up close at PhilaMOCA.  So I have seen Audrey play more than bands whom I have loved for years but only seen once or twice.

Mal is a great performer and I am always happy to have them open a show.  I’d like to see them headline as well.  Maybe down the line….

Mal said that someone forgot to bring enough merch (“it was me”).  So all there were left were posters.  But Mal would be happy to sign them.  I liked the posters, but the exit scene was so crazy–coat check and merch in one small room–that I just skipped out.