I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: November 18, 2019] Blushing

I hadn’t heard of Blushing before this show, but as soon as I found out they were a shoegazey type of band, their name made perfect sense.  Then I read a little bit more about them and was even more fascinated.

Here’s a little bio from For the Rabbits

Blushing are a band formed of two husband and wife pairs, although it didn’t start out that way. Back in 2015, singer and guitarist Michelle Soto plucked up the courage to share some songs she had been working on with friend Christina Carmona. From that friendship, a creative partnership was born, Christina adding her classically trained vocals and bass-playing to the mix, shifting Michelle’s rough sketches into fully formed compositions. Recruiting their spouses, they set about recording the songs that would become their debut EP, Tether.

Since that EP, the band has released another EP, Weak, and a full lengthg album, Blushing.  They played 7 songs during our show.  All of them were from the album except “Hidden Places” which came from Weak.

The band has a great classic shoegaze sound.  Waves of guitars with Christina Carmona’s beautiful voice often sounding more like an instrument than a voice.  But there was also some heaviness involved–some crashing guitars, big riffs and loud drums.

It was also evident right from the start was how much fun this band was having.  They told us they were excited to be in Philly for the first time.  Michele Soto on guitar was wearing a Dead Milkmen shirt (Big Lizard in My Backyard) just for the occasion.

Christina Carmona was up front for the bass and vocals.  She sang the majority of the songs (with some backing vocals from Soto).  Carmona’s voice is delicate and dreamy, but also very powerful.

I was in front of guitarist Noe Carmona.  He wasn’t especially active, but he played some fantastic sounds and wicked solos.

I couldn’t really ever see drummer Jake Soto–I always seem to be positioned so that the rummer’s cymbals cover their face.  But his presence was totally felt.  They were using the Ringo Deathstarr drumkit which I’m pretty sure had a bass drum for a floor tom.

Christina and Michelle were the active ones.  On several occasional lay on the floor of propped their feet on the bass drum.  There was a particularly cool moment where everyone was grooving down in front of the drum kit.

They opened the set with “So Many.”  Michele played a quiet guitar motif while Christina sang.  After the first verse, Jake thumped a drum while Christina came in with a bass note.  It was so explosive after the opening dreamy start (sadly the explosiveness didn’t translate in the video at all).  After a full 2 and a half minutes the song crashed in with a cool solo from Noe.

“Dream Merchants” followed with a simple thumping riff to open the song and a full-on shoegaze sound complete with a noisy guitar solo soaring over Christinas’ vocals.

“Hidden Places” came from the Weak EP.  It has a slightly different sound–a bit more poppy with Cure-like elements.

All night long the lights were crazy–as if who ever was at the controls had never used lights before.  This was especially evident during “The Last Time” a  pretty, quieter song with a poppy Cocteau Twins vibe and some really cool guitars sounds.  The lights changed indiscriminately throughout this song as if they were trying to mess the band up.

It didn’t phase them at all and it was during this song that Michele first played from the floor.

“Pressure” was faster with some great drumming and cool whammy bar chords. “Control” has a lovely guitar melody and a cool moment later in the song when the two guitars play harmony parts together.  Noe played some really interesting sounds from his guitar, but he was often facing away so I didn’t really see what he was doing.

They ended the set with the gorgeous “Sunshine.”  I love the echoing guitars coupled with one of the best vocal performances from Christina.  The way the song kicks into high gear mid-way through is just fantastic.

When the night was over, Christina and Michele were selling merch and they were both super friendly.  That’s when I found out about the Dead Milkmen shirt.  I really liked their shirt design.  I also bought their CD.  They only had copies of the Japanese edition which featured an extra song.  Michele told me that they had to go back into the studio to record an extra song for the Japanese release.  I never knew that that’s what bands do for the Japanese market.  The show was educational as well as musically terrific.

SETLIST