On Saturday, November 2nd, I went to The Sinclair to see White Reaper. Based out of Louisville, Kentucky, White Reaper play hook-filled, power-pop rock music. The band is currently on tour promoting their major label debut album, “You Deserve Love,” which features their highest charting single to date, “Might Be Right.”
I met up with veteran Allston Pudding photographer Nick, who knew The Sinclair well and had seen White Reaper three times. He expertly instructed me to stand by the bar on the side of the house, which was the closest one could stand to the stage while also staying out of the fray of ye olde mosh pit. Nick however boldly waged battle in the front, as there was no protected space for camera people.
Nick took off and I settled into a spot roundabout the bar, though I cheated slightly center for an even better view and threw caution to the wind. I noticed some conspicuously dressed mustachioed men walk through the crowd. Mysterious and exciting!
The lights dimmed and a booming voice swept in from the sound booth saying, “Ladieeeeeees and gentlemen!” followed by a tutorial on safety/finding the exits. After that, the show began with the first band.
Wombo was the first of the triple bill for the evening, which featured all Kentucky-based artists. Two less-conspicuously dressed but still mustachioed men entered the stage, joined by vocalist/bass player Sydney Chadwick. The agitated post-punk feel of Wombo wound up the crowd. Sydney’s voice was like a Swiss army knife, able to switch from vibrato to cooing at will. The math-y time signatures, minor key melodies, and liberal use of effects fomented much tension. It wasn’t until a cover of (New England’s own) Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” that we were able to get a little bit of a release.
After their excellent set, the remainder of the crowd started to seriously fill out for Nude Party. We were soon greeted onstage by a parade of the previously mentioned conspicuously dressed mustachioed men. Their entrance music was the early rock n’ roll tune “Rumble,” by Link Wray & His Ray Men, a song once banned from radio for supposedly inciting too much gang violence in the 1950’s. Nude Party looked as if they fell out of the back of a vintage clothing store with their huge collars and cocaine sunglasses. After the last musician arrived I counted seven members in total and they announced themselves as Nude Party, (although Polyester Party might have been more appropriate). It was indeed a party and their energy was infectious. They played us their brand of 60’s psych-rock, and sang about drugs and not understanding “old people.”
The party spirit could not be contained. It overflowed wildly into the audience as dancing commenced. The crowd was getting rowdy (maybe it was the Link Wray song?) and was already full-tilt boogie: crowd surfing, spraying beer in the air, and making out. Lead singer Patton Magee shimmied his hips and worked the crowd, steering the band through a white-hot set. To say the crowd was warmed up for White Reaper would have been an understatement.
The stage vacated and the crowd frothed at the mouth for headliners White Reaper. The crowd murmured in anticipation. Then, the drummer walked to the mic and announced, “WE SOLD OUT BOSTON!” The rest of White Reaper then took the stage.
The members of White Reaper, who were, for the record, not mustachioed, were as incongruously dressed as Nude Party were matching in appearance. Singer Tony Esposito careened his voice from beneath a hooded Harvard sweatshirt for the duration of the evening, which was soaked with sweat by the final note.
White Reaper are a pop-punk band known for incorporating classic rock conventions such as harmonizing lead guitars and soft 80’s synth keyboards into their immensely catchy songs. Those disparate influences were revealed when the band played short covers of Blink 182’s “Dammit” (released 1997) as well as Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good” (released 1978).
White Reaper’s major key melodies lifted the audience to a new level of consciousness as dancing turned to full-on moshing and endless crowd surfing. Since it was Halloween weekend, people squeezed the last bits of usefulness out of their costumes. There was a banana in the mosh pit (definitely not a good place for a banana), a dinosaur, and a cat. We were egged on by the indefatigable keyboardist/hype man who probed the crowd with, “Are you tired?! I could go all night!” Esposito offered positive reinforcement regarding crowd safety, saying he loved how everyone picked each other up if they fell. The bass player, dressed in all black, undercut him with, “Nah, just leave ‘em down there! Haha… Just kidding…”
The headliners appeared comfortable and in their element, as they seemingly continued where they left off after a memorable performance at this year’s Boston Calling. The crowd pulsated as crowd surfers and spilled beer flew through the air. The band left the stage and upon their return for the encore the drummer approached the mic. He ripped a joke about an Australian who joined the U.S. Army, and the band pushed into an encore.
White Reaper finished the night with hit single “Judy French” and the crowd cheered as the lights came on. The band departed and the audience shuffled towards the exit. A veritable graveyard of crushed Narraganset cans lay about the floor. I went to check on Nick, our photographer who was snapping shots from the front:
“Nick, are you all right?” Nick glanced over his shoulder with a wide grin, “I got kicked in the head on the last song!”
White Reaper, you did not disappoint.
Dan Moffat is a Boston-based writer, musician, and audio engineer.
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See below for photos from the show (in order: White Reaper, The Nude Party, and Wombo):