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Archive for the ‘Brooklyn Bowl’ Category

[ATTENDED: April 22, 2026] Sir Chloe [rescheduled from December 7, 2025]

This show was initially scheduled for December, but Dana had appendicitis and had to postpone the east coast shows.  This worked out for me because I couldn’t get to the December show.

I was pretty pleased when I arrived that the people in front of me were (possibly) older than me.  They had gray hair but she was wearing a Sir Chloe shirt.  Sir Chloe is pretty much a TikTok sensation so her crowds tend to be young (my daughter introduced me to her–in fact I think I liked her shows more than she did so I went to this one without her).

I enjoyed being behind the older folks because she was very short.  But she left (bathroom?) at the end of Suzy Clue and a young woman pushed her way into he spot, followed by a much taller woman.  So, my view was blocked, and to make it worse, the first woman was an arm raiser–the worst affliction after loud talkers.  Luckily I was able to schooch over away from them–but I missed seeing how the older woman enjoyed the show.

Sir Chloe’s band came out on stage and by the end of the set I was blown away by them.  Alina Sloan was on bass.  She was the furthest from me, but–especially toward the end–her bass was great–exciting and rumbly.  I was in front of guitarist Soph Shreds and does she ever.  It was really fun watching her rock out and play some great loud chords.  She also had a few tricks up her sleeve which I enjoyed quite a bit.  But mostly I was blown away by drummer Maya Sepansky.  Holy shit, she was fantastic–she played all kinds of fills, played different rhythmic patterns and generally blew me away.

But as they started Squaring Up, Dana was singing from behind the curtain.  She came out on stage midsong wearing a Mannequin Pussy T-shirt and cargo pants.  A very different look from her red suit from the previous tour.  Like last time, she was deadpan and understated.  Unlike last time, she seemed to walked around a lot more, getting close to us on the edges of the stage.  Her on stage persona is so fascinating because unlike say Suzy Clue, she is not doing anything on stage.  No dancing, no writhing, just singing.  And I love that she has the confidence in herself and her music to just sing her songs.  And yet, despite not doing a lot, she is totally engaging–charismatic and weirdly engaging.

This tour was for her relatively new album Swallow the Knife. She played 8 of 11 songs from it (skipping The Hole (the opening song!), Complicated and Too Much).  And the fans were just as into the new stuff–it’s super catchy, like the ahha ahha of Forgiving.

She didn’t speak very much between songs–she’s very hard to figure out.  Although she did ask “who likes to Kiss” as an intro to Kiss (the woman next to me shouted “I volunteer!”)  The catchy “right-ee-ight-ee-ight” is fun as is the end, “I don’t want love, I want revenge.”

She only played 4 songs from her previous album.  But she chose good ones and played three in a row.  I love the noisy squealing of Salivate and that she followed it with the quieter Obsession.  I was really happy that she played Hooves (I don’t wanna hold hands)–one of my favorite songs that seemed well used near the end of the set to get everyone really pumped.

One of my favorite songs is Sedona, which has two catchy parts, the nicotine/amphetamine part and the Sedona/Arizona part gives you two sing alongs in one song.

She played 7 of 9 songs from her first album (Skipping Easy on You and Wrath), which still gets the biggest applause, I think.  People went nuts for July. She ended the set with two songs from the album.  I enjoyed the loud/quiet mix of Untie Me and Animal.  And then she told us she had time for one more song and everyone got excited when the dude who wanted Michelle so badly shouted Michelle!  But she messed with everyone by playing the very mellow Candy

The encore break was short and she came back out for Michelle which made everyone go crazy.  It’s not my favorite of her songs to be sure, although it’s what all the kids like.  I was happy that she ended the show with the ass kickng Too Close which features two great sing along moments, “I think it’s time for you to go ” and the stellar: “Don’t tell me to listen when you’ve got nothing to say.”

Sir Chloe songs feel kind of understated on record, like Passenger, but live, the band really rocks out.  The guitars are loud, the drums rumble and the bass throbs.  And the songs are fairly short so a 21 song set can run about 75 minutes and it feels like a much longer show.  I’m so glad I went and it was even fun to get home early.

Brooklyn Bowl 2026 Asbury Lanes, June 2024 The Foundry, April 2024
Squaring Up ¶ Should I Õ Should I Õ
July ¶ Salivate Õ Salivate Õ
Take It ⊗ Center Õ Center Õ
Passenger ⊗ Know Better Õ Know Better Õ
Kiss ⊗ Mercy Mercy ∇
Salivate Õ July ¶ July ¶
Obsession Õ Untie You ¶ Untie You ¶
I Am the Dog Õ Animal ¶ Animal ¶
Sedona ¶ Company Company ∇
Eyes ⊗ Hooves Õ Hooves Õ
Forgiving ⊗ Seventeen π Seventeen π
Forget It ⊗ Obsession Õ Obsession Õ
Company Over Again π Over Again π
Hooves Õ I Am the Dog Õ I Am the Dog Õ
Holy ⊗ Sedona ¶ Sedona ¶
Mercy Michelle ¶ Michelle ¶
Untie You ¶ Feel Again Õ Feel Again Õ
Animal ¶ encore encore
Candy ⊗ Easy on You ¶ Easy on You ¶
encore Forgiving Forgiving  ⊗
Michelle ¶ Too Close ¶ Too Close ¶
Too Close ¶

⊗ Swallow the Knife (2025)
π Single (2024)
Õ I am the Dog (2023)

∇ Single (2022)
¶ Party Favors (2020)

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[ATTENDED: April 22, 2026] Sir Chloe [rescheduled from December 7, 2025]

This show was initially scheduled for December, but Dana had appendicitis and had to postpone the east coast shows.  This worked out for me because I couldn’t get to the December show.

Suzy Clue was supposed to open the previous show and she opened this one as well.  When I looked her up last time I discovered that Suzy Clue

is the internet’s newest “hot emo girl.” Her music is angsty but not overly precious, breathing fresh life into traditional shoegaze sound palettes. As a self-taught musician, Suzy is reminding the music industry what it’s like to start from scratch. She’s gone from not knowing what a bassline is to writing and producing a song that thrashes and shatters your heart over and over again.

I was intrigued to see her.  When the band came out I was fascinated by the set up.  Bass and guitar were really far apart with the drums tucked in behind the guitar. I thought that it was odd that Suzy on bass would be way over to the side of the stage.  And t hen as the first song started, I realized my foolish mistake.  Because they were leaving room for Suzy herself, who came out looking far sexier than I expected with “hot emo girl” taking on a very different meaning.  I was genuinely surprised at how oddly sexual her performance was (especially since Sir Chloe is totally not that).

I had listened to a few of her songs before the show (she has 4 songs released at this time) and they were cool–heavy guitars and soft vocals.  But live, I found the soft vocals to be “sexy” rather than “dreamy.”

Love Me the Same opened with a quiet guitar part and Suzy danced around the stage before singing her sultry vocals.  And then the song exploded with guitars and bass and Suzy danced around some more.  It was weird–like she didn’t know what to do, so she danced like she was trying to seduce us all.

I really liked the drum part of Holy Touch and there were some cool effects on the guitar.  In fact I liked a lot of the sounds the band generated.  But it honestly felt like she was trying way too hard to be sexy.  At one point she dropped to the floor and did something I couldn’t see and then said “oops, my pants slid down, I hate when that happens.”  She also did a sexy thing where it looked like she might make out with the bass player (but didn’t).  It was just too much.

There was also a funny moment when she said this was all so surreal because she used to work here (Brooklyn Bowl), well, not this one, the one in New York.  Hmmm.

So overall, I liked the music and I still like her recorded songs, but the live show just felt off to me.

Love Me the Same (2026)
Holy Touch (2024)
*Froze*
*No Defense*
*Feed* (2026)
*Attached*
*Rest My Mind*
Remember Me (2023)
Uneasy (2025)

All songs were released only as singles.  Songs with * are unreleased.

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[DID NOT ATTEND: April 17, 2026] Touché Amoré / One Step Closer / Greet Death

I’ve seen Touché Amoré twice and have been clown away both times.  When they announced this tour of the Stage Four album, I was ready to see them.  I don’t know this album any more than their other ones, but I do enjoy a tour of an entire album.

Now this album is pretty intense: it is the band’s fourth album, but the title’s central inspiration was singer Jeremy Bolm’s mother, who died of cancer.  But I have been so impressed by the passion and empathy of the band that I assumed this show would be the very definition of catharsis.

But then DAVE announced a show the same night and I had a tough time deciding which to go to.  I had never seen DAVE before, after all.  And then, the whole thing was moot because the John Malkovich show was announced in Princeton, and there was no way I could miss that.

I’m sure Touché Amoré will be back and I will happily see them again next time.

I don’t know One Step Closer, but they are a straight edge hardcore punk band from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  They are indeed a hardcore band (the singer is a classic hardcore screamer) but they have some melodic components as well.  Indeed, in one song there’s intense hardcore screaming and also really pretty harmonies.  They haven’t put out an album since 2024 and it sounds like their sound is evolving.  I’ll bet they are great live.

I saw Greet Death (geez, with this name and the TA album being about cancer…) open for Foxing in 2022.  I have an overall good memory of them, but when I look at the post I wrote, I didn’t have all that much to say about them, except that the girls in front of me talked thoughout their set.  Their newest album is even more shoegaze than when I saw them.  This would have been a fun night (despite the darkness).

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[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. (more…)

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[DID NOT ATTEND: October 8, 2024] Julien Baker / Lucy Dacus / Katie Malco

My daughter and I saw Julien Baker at Webster Hall on Sunday night, the night that Julien got sick and left early.  

She immediately announced a new show two nights later in Brooklyn.

We would have loved to have gone to this show but there were a few reasons we couldn’t.  My wife and I had tickets to see Kishi Bashi and we were pretty excited to go to that one.  Plus, Brooklyn is much harder for us to get to than NYC (which is much more challenging to get to than Philadelphia).

So, we missed out on this show which featured a “surprise” set from Lucy Dacus.  My daughter and I assumed that Lucy would be the surprise, and yeah we’re bummed we missed the show, but at least we got to see some of Julien on the first night.  (Plus, a video that I saw made it sound like the crowd was really noisy and rowdy–and consequently very distracting).

And, most likely we would probably have been too late to see Katie Malco, just like Sunday.

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[ATTENDED: October 8, 2024] Sweet Loretta

Sweet Loretta is from England.  They’ve been around for a while but only recently released their first EP/album.  When I looked them up, the first song I heard featured Kishi Bashi.  How odd, I thought.  I liked the song–it reminds me of Kishi Bashi’s more dancey stuff.

We arrived a little later than I thought we would, so we were in the bathroom when the first song started.  Midway through the song we heard the beginning of the Star Wars theme song.  I’m not sure why, although a few songs later, guitarist/singer Fraser Blanchflower said it was singer/guitarist Quinn Humphreys’s birthday and the Star Wars bit was for him.  Very curious what happened there.

Fraser and Quinn were very funny frontmen.  I enjoyed their banter quite a lot.  Bassist James Stickland was quiet for the whole show and drummer James Clark was from time to time a maniac behind the kit, which was fun.  Quinn said that Kishi Bashi stipulated that they needed to have an album or EP out as a stipulation of touring with him.  Not sure if that’s true, but they played the entire EP (except the opening soundscape).

Musically, they were very retro in style and sound.  I felt like their songs could have been on a John Hughes movie soundtrack.   They have great harmonies with all three guys up front singing together at times in a wall of sound. (more…)

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[ATTENDED: March 7, 2024] Daði Freyr 

I saw Daði Freyr about a year and a half ago on his first tour of the United States.  So now I’ve seen ALL of his appearances in Philadelphia (two).  I enjoyed the first one so much I grabbed a ticket for my wife and daughter as well.  Turned out that my daughter had a school thing she couldn’t miss.  And had I looked up the details, I would have seen the the show was sold out and I probably could have sold my ticket.  I never would have guessed it had sold out, but look at that poster–sold out up and down the country.

To my knowledge, Daði Freyr was only known from his Eurovision songs.  I had no idea that he made any kind of inroads into the US.  When I saw him last time there were some die hard fans at the show.  But this was crazy. There was a woman in front of us who, when he sang “Sunshine” nearly passed out saying “I can’t believe he’s real.”

Fascinating.

I went last time as a lark.  I went this time because I enjoyed his show and thought my family might too.  It was quite eye opening.

Like last time, the band was a trio–Daði is on synths, guitar and bass, Ylva Øyen on drums and keys and Pétur Karl on guitars and synth.

Center stage was a giant inflatable head of Daði and there were two giant hands on either side of the stage.  There was an announcement before the show in which Daði thanked us for coming and told us to look into the eyes and the souls of the people around us and get ready to dance with them.

They came out on stage and the crowd went nuts.  Appropriately, they started with “Thank You,” a classic synth pop song.  His voice is surprisingly deep and yet very warm at the same time.

last time, he followed this up with the rather amusing “Shut Up” but this time he jumped right into an older Icelandic language song–and the crowd went even crazier. (more…)

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[ATTENDED: March 7, 2024] Blusher

I was pretty excited to see Daði Freyr again.  I didn’t pay much attention to the opening act.  Last time it wa a local musician whom I hadn’t heard of.

This time it proved to be an up and coming megastar band from Australia called Blusher.

Of course, when they came out, my wife and I thought that they were a local group of teenage girls.  They sang well, the song was catchy, but they seemed so young!

Then they introduced themselves (Jade, Lauren, and Miranda) and Jade’s Australian accent was terrific and we agreed that we instantly liked them at least 5% more.

I’ve now looked them up and learned they are not teenagers (or maybe they are, but they’ve been making music for a pretty long time, anyhow).  They opened for Aurora last year.  Jade Alice (her solo name) has been making music since 2015.

I enjoyed their lyrics, which weren’t profound but were more than standard pop lyrics.

Dead End has a really catchy pause mid-verse that draws you in.  I really like Limelight–super catchy chorus

They announced a cover that we might know (I didn’t), and then played their new rocking single “Rave Angel.”    It was followed by another new song “About You.”

Then came their first hit “Softly Spoken.”  I hadn’t heard of it but it has had a million streams.  The worldplay is pretty clever.  At the end of the song Miranda sang into a mgeaphone.  Unfortunately, it cut out while she was yelling at the end.

“Hurricane Chaser” was a fun song with a cool metaphor.  But the new song “Accelerator” had a mad fast dance beat and was super catchy.

They ended with “Backbone,” a catchy song about your friend hating your boyfriend: “You said you’d punch him in the chest if you ever met him.”  Super catchy, but an odd place to punch someone…ouch.

For this song they did some basic self-defense move choreography, which was cute.  The whole show they did very simple choreography–the kind that teenagers come up with when they’re singing in their bedroom.  It made them somehow even more adorable.

And the crowd ate it up. I felt like the crowd might have been a bunch of rubes or a bunch of plants–massive shrieking when all three waved their arms at the same time, and massive screams of pleasure when they all turned around to reveal they were–gasp–all wearing sunglasses.  It was a little weird, but it made the band feel great and I think their first show in the States was a huge success for them.

I’ve decided to follow them online to see how big they get, so I can say that I saw their first show in the States.

  1. Dead End ¿
  2. Limelight ¿
  3. Say It Right (Nelly Furtado cover)
  4. Rave Angel §
  5. About You §
  6. Softly Spoken ¿
  7. Hurricane Chaser ¿
  8. Accelerator §
  9. Backbone ¿
§ new songs (2024)
¿ Should We Go Dance? EP (2023)

 

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[DID NOT ATTEND: January 29, 2024] Lucius

I’ve had a ton of opportunities to see Lucius in the last two years.  My count is 5 (plus two at festivals I wasn’t going to).  For one reason or another (sometimes inertia) I just didn’t go.

Then they announced this ten year anniversary of their debut album and I thought that that would be really fun to see.  I really liked about half of the album a lot.  The rest was good.  And I figured in a live setting all of the songs would be great.

The strange thing is I had no idea that Lucius has released only three albums (and various other remixes and stuff).  So when they played in NJ last year, had I gone, I would have seen half of this album anyway!  In fact, had I gone to that show, I would have heard them play one of their newer songs that I love, “Next to Normal.”  Serves me right.

But there was something neat about going to this little mini-tour and being one of the select cities that got to see it.

It took them a while t o come out.  In fact, they turned the lights out at 8:45 and we sat in the dark until like 9:10, which is just weird.  But whatever.  The guys came out first and then Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig came out in matching outfits–berets and bold colored jackets00primary colors splitting the coats in half with brighter colors on the pockets.  They looked great.

There was a (tall) family in front of me and they were pretty good when they started singing “Wildewoman.”  There was a woman behind me who was singing very loudly.  She had a good voice, but honestly we are here to hear these two women with incredible voices.   Fortunately she was mostly in tune and easy to ignore. (more…)

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[ATTENDED: January 29, 2024] Jeff Taylor

Jeff Taylor is an old friend of Lucius.  He is from new Jersey but lives in Pittsburgh.

He opened his set by humming a kind of dissonant sound as he strummed his guitar.  It went on for far longer than it should have and became kind of funny, but not actually funny.

Then he finally sang a line “We lost my dad,” and seemed to start the whole song over.   Whether he messed up or just wanted that line to hang there is unclear.

Jeff played an electric guitar and sang and I just couldn’t get into it.

By the end of his set I feel like he warmed me up a bit and I enjoyed the last few songs more.  But most of his songs were about breaking up with someone and they just weren’t that interesting.

I mean “Flashes” goes

Just push me away
Let me be free of you
You weren’t my kinda girl

So, yeah. (more…)

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