Tuesday night, order the Middle East Downstairs got a little dreamy with sets by surf lo-fi band Beach Fossils and local favorites, pills Young Adults and BOYTOY.
Openers BOYTOY stole the show from the get-go with their fuzzy, ampoule reverb pop rock. The trio making up BOYTOY is no stranger to Boston, but I was a stranger to them! This being my first BOYTOY show, it was easy to see why the Boston/Brooklyn band is gaining in popularity, having opened recently for Marnie Stern, Banditas, Radical Dads, Diarrhea Planet. They made an awesome video with BreakThruRadioTV that samples a couple of tunes and shows the band’s wacky personality (CHECK OUT drummer Dylan Ramsey’s sick ass crewneck). The band manages to be nostalgic and fresh at the same time with songs like “Visits” and “TV Dreams” that are filled with vocals reminiscent of little girls singing in tandem and guitar solos that’ll knock you on your ass. While lacking a bass player, the band makes up for it by kicking up the bass drum as much as it can. Plus, for a band it doesn’t get much doper than having a music video on an episode of BurgerTV, sandwiched in between psych rockers Thee Oh Sees, and The Wrong Words, while starring Horatio Sanz.
Following BOYTOY, another MA trio, Young Adults, pleased the crowd with their garage rock set. While not an entirely interesting set, the guys played their “brand of angst ridden rock” to a T. For everyone’s information, no, I did not make that description up; I found it on their bandcamp. The entire set I was trying to figure out how to characterize their demeanor and lyrics and then the sort of tamed down performance they created, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. At one point singer, Chris Villon was yelling, “We’ve got aggression” over and over again, but … they really didn’t. I do have to say that I do love a band that has an ode to those “Born in 91” though.
When Beach Fossils step onto stage, I kind of forget where I am for a minute. Well, correction, I forget WHEN I am. By the different clothing looks captured by the band, it’s the 90s.
There were polos, ripped light wash jeans with tucked in shirts (yes it was a band shirt), oversized black jackets, backward caps with hair that grows past the shoulders and even a gold chain a la Tony Soprano; yes Dustin Payseur I’m lookin’ at you. So when the fuck are we? Or maybe the better question to ponder is when the fuck are they? By the end of cataloging their get-ups, I feel like I’m in a dream, and this is only perpetuated by the melodious, fuzzy, dreamy music that fills the Middle East Downstairs.
The band played song after song filled with their signature dreamy, breathy, emotional vocals and guitar riffs that classify them with the best of surf bands and have them often compared to acts such as Surfer Blood and The Drums. Formed in 2009, the band’s past members include Cole Smith of DIIV and John Pena of Heavenly Beat. And while their catalogue of three albums, spearheaded by singer Dustin Payseur, is great pieces of lo-fi, mellow indie music, the vocals can be classified as nondescript, or in a better work, non-offensive; they just are. Because of this, it’s a little jarring to see Payseur and the rest of the band live and having actual personalities rather than matching the album persona, but this shock is a welcome one as it’s the band’s humor that took the forefront of their set for the night.
Songs like “Shallow,” “Daydream” and ”Generational Synthetic” were separated by singer Dustin Payseur and guitarist Tommy Davidson cracking jokes and palling around with the crowd. Several times Davidson made jokes announcing their “last song” and that “Beach Fossils is up next, you guys were great.” It might have gotten a tad redundant and boring until he pulled out the big guns, announcing, “Beach Fossils is up next, then Puddle of Mudd… a Limp Bizkit acoustic set and A Perfect Circle after that.” Since this was unfortunately not the actual plan, the band continued on with their set and finished strong, exchanging an encore with a ten minute last song filled with reverb and noise that doubled as a therapy session for Payseur who rambled on under the overwhelming instrumentals about how terrible he was in school, feeling insane, wondering what was going on in his head, wondering what was going on in the audience’s head and finally professed his love for the crowd for a solid two minutes. I left the venue with blissed out ears, dreamy thoughts and asking where my beaches at? Pretty weird for some guys from Brooklyn because there ain’t no real beaches there…