Stacking a five-band bill that keeps its momentum is a tall order. Play it safe with similar bands and you’ll create the musical equivalent of a five-course pizza dinner: it sounds great at first, illness but you’ll wind up too overwhelmed to fully enjoy the last piece. On the other hand, cialis assemble a hodgepodge of unrelated artists and you can bet that half the crowd will duck out for a set or two. Therein lies the genius of the recent five-set lineup at the Middle East Upstairs: taking cues from headliner Colleen Green’s upbeat melodies and fuzzed-out guitar, story the bill managed to dodge both risks by balancing pop inflections and punk roots—all while mercifully avoiding pop-punk territory.
Local two-piece Ursula kicked the night off with a lurch into turbulent noise-punk, layering squealing guitars with atonal vocals reminiscent of Kim Gordon at her most esoteric. Escalating tension through dark, dive-bombing riffs, pick dragging and the occasional piercing scream, vocalist and guitarist Caity O’Hear brought the set to a rattling height by climbing into the crowd and howling with haunted poise. The polarizing performance made a great point about pulling off a longer lineup: why bother easing in?
Digital Prisoners of War brought the night back to center with a batch of even-keeled songs that diffused the tension and comforted in-it-for-the-headliner onlookers who’d expected a poppier opener. Led by Supriya Gunda’s bright belting and laced with particularly punchy basslines, DPoW blended retro phrasing and modern rock rhythms into something resembling grunge, but more original and inspired than any ‘90s flannel.
Rounding out the local openers, Ian came dangerously close to stealing the show with the night’s most dynamic performance. Reflecting the band’s background as a bicoastal project, the set echoed LA and East Coast influences in a more pronounced way than the group’s bedroom-pop recordings, overlapping sunny, jangling guitars with jagged basement-show riffing. Abandoning all restraint minutes into the set, the trio dissolved into the kind of controlled chaos that a band can only pull off with a fierce command of technique. Crowd favorite “Great Big Dog” stood out as one of the night’s highlights, with its bittersweet refrain “You can be happy if you want to be” perfectly capturing Ian’s tangled, emotive style.
Touring opener Mannequin Pussy offered the night’s most traditionally punk set, barreling into a crop of snarling two- and three-minute numbers with such sustained fury that the songs risked blending together. The later sets of any longer lineup might be the most difficult to balance, but the Philly four-piece pulled it off with enough force to jostle past the mid-show lull.
Finally taking the stage almost an hour late—the seemingly inevitable pitfall of a longer bill—Colleen Green set the tone for the rest of the night with “I Want To Grow Up”, the title track off her recently released album. A departure from her older material (which delightfully shudders away from anything approaching maturity) the record makes clear that despite Green’s blunt songwriting and blunted persona, there’s more to her music than its frequent stoner-pop categorization suggests. Though concealed by bubblegummy melodies upon first listen, her lyrics are charged with a stumbling-through-my-twenties internal struggle in which getting baked is only a footnote. It’s less about the party and more about wondering why she isn’t having more fun. Sometimes the doubt seeps through: does she actually want to grow up? A pulled-together adult life sounds great, but she can’t stop thinking about how much responsibility sucks.
Translating that complexity into a live performance is no simple task. Backed only by a drummer who just slightly overwhelmed her at times, Green’s guitar-driven set took on a messy garage rock edge which echoed her irreverent attitude, sprinkling an extra dash of no-fucks-given on top of a heaping scoop of whatever. Peering out behind her signature wayfarers, she commanded the stage with a self-assuredness that her songs lack, showing off album highlights “Television” and “Pay Attention” along with a few older picks, including the Ramones-spoofing “I Wanna Be Degraded”. While the neurotic nuances that set her latest work apart were nearly downplayed to the point of getting drowned out, the result was forty-five minutes of pure fun. Overall, it wasn’t quite what the album promised, but it definitely wasn’t a disappointment.
Maybe Green does want to grow up— but she doesn’t have to. Whatever she’s already doing seems like it’s working out just fine.
