I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 6, 2025] Oshima Brothers

This was our first time going to Archer Music Hall or it’s smaller companion The Arrow.  It’s a great set up with the two venue attached and yet somehow totally independent.  Our show was a quiet folkie show and downstairs were The Melvins and Napalm Death and we couldn’t hear any of it.

I had never heard of the Oshima Brothers.  Actually, that’s not true, they played Guster’s On the Ocean Festival (which we didn’t go to), but I hadn’t head them at all.

The brothers came out and there was a joke about one of them (Sean) looking like Nick Jonas (he does).  So they are Japanese-Italian folk-pop siblings from the coast of Maine.  Sean and Jamie play keys, bass, drums, looping, dance moves, and magic.

They had a great stage presence–lots of smiling and crowd interactions.  And their musical prowess was impressive–the amount of things they could play with looping.

Their songs were gentle and sweet but kind of forgettable.  The kind of songs that work well and are enjoyable live, but when you listen to them later, they’re just sort of okay.

Their most powerful song was 1942, a song about his family being imprisoned during the war.   It was written for their grandfather and features a rap by their cousin Daniel (he wasn’t there for the show).  A terrible moment in the country’s history (and now one of many, sadly).

Their later songs were a little too poppy and almost boy band (hey Nick Jonas) for me.  But their cover of The Beatles Come Together which segued into Oops I Did It Again was pretty fantastic.

I’s be happy to see them open for someone else in the future.

• Burning Earth ♠
• Lost at Sea ♦
• Dance With Me ♠
• Destination ∞
• Come Together x Oops!…I Did It Again
• 1942 §
• Nine Mile Kite ♦
• Espresso ∞
• You’re My Taste in Music ∞
• These Cold Nights ♦
• Love Is Tall ♠

♦ Under the Same Stars/Sunset Red (2020)
♠ Dark Nights Golden Days (2022)
∞ Can You Feel the Sun Returning EP (2024)
§ single (2025)