going222jail

Last Friday, a watershed moment in the Boston indie-emo rock community transpired when a split EP was dropped from enthusiasts of idiosyncratic grammatical artistic liberties: Gollylagging, going222jail, and Dino Gala. The record release show was in Somerville, in honor of the three band split EP record fauna – and we were here for it. 

All bands gave shoutouts to the talent buyer, a perfect 3-for-3, which has got to go in the talent buyer Hall of Fame. Understandable. Buyer Alex Pickert invited them to play Crystal Ballroom – a gorgeous sounding, fresh faced, paaaacked 500 capacity venue that just gets better everytime I go in. This time I noticed upgraded lights, new background visuals, and cheaper drinks. 

After a spirited performance from openers Addie, the night kicked off with Gollylagging – a post-hardcore trio who was in full force and full roar. After asking the audience if they’d seen the new movie “Cocaine Bear” (I would be remiss to not point out here that the concert is taking place directly above a movie theater), they launched into beast mode on fauna opener “frog.” I have written here in my notes “mosh pit, not-so-gentle,” and yes that happened for most of the set. The band turned away from the audience and inward toward themselves to connect better with the music and deal the audio goods, which was a move I hadn’t seen pulled off with this much poise since I saw Death Cab do it in their early days.

going22jail was the next act of (as they described) very Italian bands of the evening. jail actually used to be called “Italian Ice” when they played as a trio, and when bass player Matti Lepkowski joined the band the name changed. going222jail, pronounced “going to jail,” play a DSU influenced brand of chorus drenched rock that sounds spectacular from their Roland Jazz guitar amps. Affable singer Jools Skiffington was positively loquacious as per usual, entertaining the crowd with off-beat banter in between numbers. It was like he was standing next to you at the show and chatting at the same time as providing musical entertainment.  He joked that the crowd was so large, he wouldn’t even be mad if someone left. Skiffington bopped around the stage, leaning his head into bandmates, as they played tracks from their EP Ragweed and of course fauna. They also uncovered a nice cover of “Maps.” 

Lastly was Dino Gala, and they kicked things off with “Take It Back.” Where jail are suppliers of chorus-y tones, Gala deals in phase pedals from atop a skateboard mount. The emo pop-punk was solid and the audience’s excitement was through the (chandeliered) roof. The enthusiasm was evident in the free merch shirt they gave out onstage, the crowd singing along, and the competitive setlist requests by fans after the set. Gala felt very polished and grounded, and they called back Gollylagging’s singer James to the stage for closer “British,” which tied the evening together nicely. After the last note was struck the band embraced on stage, the revelers reluctantly left the building, drifting out into the 19° evening. 

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