[DID NOT ATTEND: October 2, 2026] Balthvs / Free Whenever
This We saw Balthvs open for My Morning Jacket two nights in a row and they were dynamite both nights. I was super excited when they announced this show only to find out that I had tickets to two other shows on the same night. I might have even chosen this one over one of the others but Ardmore is a hassle to get to and I really wanted to go to the third show anyhow.
Treblezine says of them, that they are a
surf-rock fusion trio from Bogotá, Colombia, which blends dub with Middle Eastern melodies layered over cumbia. Balthvs, which consists of Balthazar Aguirre on guitar, Johanna Mercuriana on bass, and Santiago Lizcano on drums, has an inviting musical presence and a deftly blurring range of influences that makes them shine a bit differently than another, more prominent power trio blazing up genre amalgams for what used to be just the blazed, but have now taken on multiple identities of chill.
They were really great live.
I hadn’t heard of Free Whenever who are a Brooklyn-based psychedelic groove band (bassist Trevor LaVecchia, guitarist Neil Gulieria and drummer Brendan Steuart). I’ve listened to a few songs and they really hit a sweet spot for me. Their bio says
Free Whenever’s unique blend of vintage psychedlia, dub reggae, eastern modality, and African rhythmic tradition leaveslisteners fully immersed in a synesthetic sound experience. Their self-proclaimed “psychedelic groove music” identity is built on intertwining, conversational bass and guitar melodies over a backbone of Afro-Latin percussion and punchy, hip hop-inspired drums. Live, Free Whenever runs rawer and more psychedelic than the records: the songs are launch points, and the improvisation builds rather than repeats.
This sounds like a really great show and I am bummed to have missed it, for sure. But they’re both young bands and will, I assume, be back again.
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