Jet engines. Race cars. Avalanches. White Lung at Great Scott.
What do they all have in common?
They’re loud, troche they’re fast, physician and they’re all at least mildly terrifying in one way or another.
On Tuesday night in Allston, vialis 40mg White Lung obliterated the eardrums of anyone brave enough to come within 100 ft. of the venue during a brief but extremely fierce post-midnight set.
The band’s cross-country trek earlier in the day had nearly been derailed by flight delays, and front woman Mish Way seemed as angry as a tenant locked out of their new apartment on move-in day when she and her band mates took the stage early Wednesday morning.
Wearing a ridiculous leopard-print robe, Way screamed at the top of her lungs throughout the entire set, jabbing at the air with two fingers outstretched like imaginary pistols ready to mow down an opposing army.
At one point, the surprisingly large (for a Tuesday) crowd grew quiet between songs, and Way urged them to “go crazy”. When they failed to respond, Way uttered the most telling line of the entire night: “that’s right, it’s not your job to be loud, that’s our job”.
And loud they were. The kind of loud that CVS-brand ear plugs can’t contend with. At one point during the set, I stepped outside to give my eardrums a break, and could still clearly hear the band’s aural assault bouncing off the storefronts across the street. It was obvious that Way and Co. were dead-set on making their cross-continent trip worthwhile.
While White Lung’s scorching set overshadowed the openers, they weren’t too bad themselves. San Francisco four-piece Vaniish had a dark, new-wave-ish vibe that called to mind New Order, very early Cure records, Interpol, and a whole lot of other bands that wear black and generally look unhappy in promo pictures. Their take on the genre was a very competent one, and they’re worth checking out if you’re into that sort of thing.
Cambridge upstarts Sweet John Bloom were next. This was my third time seeming them, and they’ve gotten better each time. They played a host of songs that are not on their debut EP Picky – and all of them sounded like winners. An impressive feat for a band that has been around less than a year.
Mormon Crosses, a Vancouver-based act that describe their genre as “art punk” provided the main support. Like the headliners, they played fast and loud and featured a bunch of killer drum fills.
Bonus fact: while trying to Google the drummer’s name so I could give him credit for said drum fills, I learned that Mormons don’t actually wear or display crosses. The band states that they are not religiously affiliated and will not answer any religiously focused questions during interviews.