I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: October 1, 2023] boygenius

Sometime in April, my daughter asked if we could go to the All Things Go Festival.  I had never heard of this Festival and assumed the answer was no.  But then I saw that it was at the Merriweather Post Pavilion which is exactly three hours away from us.  So when tickets went on sale, I managed to get two pre-sale tickets for Sunday.  And then when they went on proper sale, I managed to score two more for Saturday.

Sunday was  the far more important day for music.  I mean, the whoel reason she wanted to go was to see boygenius (and Lana Del Rey).  But this was a great day of music to be sure.

Despite our plans to get to the pavilion early for boygenius, by the time we got there, every close seat was full.  We didn’t want to sit in the sun (it was HOT) so we wound up sitting much further back than I would have liked.

I have to say that I was shocked that Lana del Rey was headlining and not boygenius, because it sure seemed to me that boygenius was the biggest band on the planet at the time.  But Lana does have a much longer track record (and a lot of fans).

Boygenius was late coming on stage.  I genuinely don’t know why.  I mean, Arlo Parks had been off the stage for half an hour and the Boygenius gear was already on stage (the festival was, otherwise, very efficient).  So they went on 15 minutes late.  And what was insulting about it was that earlier in the week we were told that beabadoobie couldn’t make it so boygenius would get an extra 15 minutes.   We were prepared for a full on 90 minute show, but we lost those 15 minutes anyway.

They played The Boys Are Back in Town over the speakers and then we saw the geniuses backstage singing “Without You Without Them” as they do.

And then they came bounding out on stage. 

The production was huge.  They did their full video show and everything, which was cool.

They started out with the most rocking songs, “$20” and “Satanist.”  And they rocked hard. The crowd was totally into it.

The funniest moment for me was when these balloon asterisks (they were some kind of souvenir from Monster Energy Drinks or something–they were long thin balloons tied together into as asterisk that was easily 6 foot high) started crowdsurfing to the stage.  It was neat to watch from the other side of the Pavillion, because it did look like they were marching.  The Boys seemed just as surprised by them and when they got to the stage, Phoebe reached out and touched one and then said get these things away from me.  And the asterisks marched back up the crowd out to the lawn.

The video screens were employed very well for the slower songs and all three of them sounded fantastic.

Going into the show I would have said Lucy Dacus was my “favorite,” but after the show I was really blown away by Julien Baker.  I’ve seen Julien Baker twice and her stage presence is so much bigger from when I saw her last time.  She was really amazing to watch (and her voice sounds fantastic).

For “Bite the Hand” they did the bit where they show the crowd on the video screens.  And for one of the songs, Phoebe asked that no one record the song.

So they played a ton of songs from the new album.  Then they switched to the EP and played a bunch of those songs.  Then they returned to the new album

They played all of the songs from both records, which was pretty awesome.

If they had kept that extra fifteen minutes, they would have played the covers of their individual songs too, which I would have really liked to hear.

I was also a little bummed that they didn’t do their now customary topless ending during Salt in the Wound–if ever there was a supportive environment for this it was here!  But Salt in the Wound was also quite a bit shorter than I thought it would be–they tended to really jam it on stage.

The following night they played Madison Square Garden and I did very much consider getting tickets for my daughter and I to go–better seats and a, it turned out, a much better show.   It sucks knowing that the show that you were so psyched for was a pale imitation of the show that happened the following night.  But I told her to try not to think about it, because she absolutely LOVED the show we saw.  She screamed, she sang along (video proof) and she loved every minute of their set.

And I did too, they were really terrific.  I only fear that they’re going to take another five years before they do anything else (if they even do anything else together).

I am also HUGELY bummed that my phone died during their set, because I wanted to take lots of videos for my daughter and I failed.

Boygenius

1. The Boys Are Back in Town (taped)
2. Without You Without Them (partial from backstage) ®
3. $20 ®
4. Satanist ®
5. Emily I’m Sorry ®
6. True Blue ®
7. Cool About It ®
8. Souvenir (Stopped and restarted after intro) Ô
9. Bite the Hand Ô
10. Revolution 0 ®
11. Stay Down (Julien’s mic cut out temporarily during the first verse) Ô
12. Leonard Cohen ®
13. Me & My Dog Ô
14. We’re in Love ®
15. Anti-Curse ®
16. Letter to an Old Poet ®
17. Not Strong Enough ®
18. Ketchum, ID Ô
19. Salt in the Wound Ô
20. Dumbest Girl Alive (100 gecs song) (Outro song by 100 gecs)