“Hello, everyone. Welcome to our dream show,” Krill’s Jonah Furman drawled into the mic before starting the final set of the evening around 11:15. The sold out crowd at Great Scott, already well-primed from the three exciting sets preceding Krill’s, cheered wildly in agreement.
A few hours earlier, Free Pizza started the evening off with a short set of their signature brand of sweet, smart, irreverent jams including “The Valentine Song,” “Net Babes” (for which there will be a new music video very soon) and “Ducks” off their album BOSTON, MA, released this past March on BUFU Records. None of Free Pizza’s songs last much longer than two minutes apiece, making their performances feel shorter than they need to be (run with that guitar hook! stick around a while!), but each one has a certain winking, boyish charm unique to the group that bodes well for the seasons to come.
Frankie Cosmos’s Greta Kline sings with a voice so pure it could be used to clean open wounds, which, honestly, it sort of does — it’s hard not to feel comforted and moved by her songwriting and the gentle way she plays it, along with drummer/vocalist Aaron Maine and bassist David Maine. Frankie Cosmos is sweet and sensitive, but far from saccharine, playing with the anxiety and beauty of life at a certain young moment. The band ended their set with a goofy, improvised trill, with Kline lying on the floor with her guitar and the Maine brothers mostly miming at playing their instruments. With a giggle and a grateful salute, they were off the stage.
Warehouse, in Boston from Atlanta, took and left the stage without much fuss or pageantry but, in between, played a game-changing hour of extremely distinctive music. Vocalist Elaine Edenfield, diminutive in stature in a light pink button-down, stands straight and still with her hands firmly behind her back at all times, giving an impression of formality and propriety that’s quickly shattered as soon as she begins to sing. That is some voice, folks — an astoundingly loud and precise chainsaw growl that rips through the layers of pristine guitar, bass, and percussion and right into your heart. It’s Hole-era Courtney Love, but without all the mess. It’s a lady-Tom-Waits on a loop-de-loop roller coaster. It’s like nothing you’ve seen. Warehouse is a stand-out band, and it’s almost impossibly cool that they’re offering their new album, Tesseracts, for free on Bandcamp… so go get that now.
Krill’s set reaffirmed their status as one of Boston’s OG treasures — though their new album has been slow to come out for reasons beyond the band’s control (it shouldn’t be too long now), Krill populated their set with mostly new tracks, all of which were marked by an urgent, almost angry energy. Furman’s wild yowling has not tempered or faded, and the music is as tightly refined and poignant as ever. The new album is a treat to look forward to, and the crowd was appreciative of the new material (almost too appreciative — Furman asked a few enthusiastic moshers to be more considerate of the group at one point).
The lineup for Thursday’s show seems to have come together purely out of mutual admiration and enthusiasm despite the eclectic variety of music styles on deck. Free Pizza’s kooky post-punk, Frankie Cosmos’s quiet, sensitive ballads, Warehouse’s fierce experimental punk, and Krill’s familiar garage rock somehow combined into a singularly happy-making evening of live music, due in part to the excellent attitudes of the performers — everyone seemed genuinely excited to be there, and each artist thanked the other acts effusively. “This is amazing. We’re not even on tour, we just drove like six hours to be here so we could be a part of this lineup!” Frankie Cosmos confessed, smiling, in between songs. That’s the kind of good will we could all use in our daily lives.