I first ran into Hunters when they opened for The Kills at the Royale back in the winter of 2012 and I’ve been stalking them to whatever Boston venue they pop up in ever since. Their presence at Brighton Music Hall on August 23 was no different, physician opening for Hunx & His Punx, look joined by 2Pretty as well as local favorites The Fagettes.

Listen. On Friday, I had to get up for work at four o’clock in the morning, took a nap at the end of my shift, and slept through The Fagettes’ and 2Pretty’s set. I’m sorry. I am confident the Fagettes, who are awesome, were awesome. And 2Pretty? Is suspiciously difficult to Google, but I’m sure they were top notch, too.

I dropped into BMH just in time to grab a beer as Hunters took the stage. The buzz about this Brooklyn duo, comprised of singer Isabel [Izzy] Almeida and guitarist Derek Watson [filled in live, too, with John Mikulak III on bass and Gregg Giuffré on drums] has been building since their inception, mostly due to their balls-to-the-wall live shows effectively carrying over into their sort-of-punk, kind-of-grunge, total-fuzz-in-an-excellent-way recordings [2011’s Hands on Fire finding production assistance from Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner and Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha after, according to Internet lore, Iha watched the group tear through a set at a New Years Eve gig that involved a champagne bottle to Watson’s face].

Hunters opened their set this time with “Noisy Bitch” from Hands on Fire, Almeida’s sure-fire jumps and weaves punctuating the ringing lyrics she trades with Watson. By the second song, Almeida found herself already draped over the stage monitors, a bob of hair the intentional color of Frenchy’s botched pink dye job pulsing over the stage, only to be back up and kicking across the floor toward Watson, his guitar notes seeming to ring and chug at once. Almeida glared out into the crowd through their set, too, a sneakered foot bent on the monitors, and sang as if catching audience members in her crosshairs, a purposeful Iggy Pop type, a Mia Zapata.

At the end of the show, I, a person who never seems to have any cash, dug through my purse for enough dollar bills to buy a t-shirt. I had the choice of a shirt with a screenprint of Married with Children’s Kelly Bundy or a cartoonish monster-hipster hybrid with hearts for eyes who’d cut off his own hand [the same monster-hipster hybrid on their website!].

I chose the monster-hipster hybrid. And I’ll continue to stalk them through Boston when they’re here and without a doubt pick up their debut self-titled coming out in September on Mom + Pop.

Hunx [aka Seth Bogart] & His Punx is a band that has also, despite me having never heard of them before the show, been widely written about, publicized, mulled over, turning heads for the last few years. The California-based band [the Punx consisting of a revolving cast of mostly female musicians, permanently including Shannon Shaw of Shannon and the Clams on bass and vocals as well as Erin Emslie on drums] recently released an album through Hardly Art called Street Punk to mixed but mostly positive reviews, many likening the more lo-fi, punked out [“street punk” is a pretty appropriate name for the album] vibe to something akin to Darby Crash and GG Allin with a wink. The album is more sonically aggressive with songs like the thirty-one seconds of “Everyone’s a Pussy (Fuck You Dude)” and the twenty-six seconds of “Don’t Call Me Fabulous” than previous releases Too Young To Be In Love [released in 2011 and produced by Ivan Julian of Richard Hell and the Voidoids] and Gay Singles [2010] as well as Hunx’s 2012 solo record Hairdresser Blues. Street Punk features a few tracks with Shaw on vox, too, a lady with soul vibrating from her sound box, something like Etta James and Detroit Cobras, that soul pushed to the brink on songs like “You Think You’re Tough” and “Mud in Your Eyes.”

Hunx took the BMH stage clad in a black mesh tank top, hand on his hip, casually bending over Emslie’s bass drum thirty-seconds into their set to yank down his pants, gracing the crowd with a quick peek of his black-thonged ass, dubbing the venue the “Anti-Fun Club” as he pointed toward the sign discouraging people from stage diving, moshing, etc., saying in between songs, “You can’t mosh, you can’t have fun—but hey, it doesn’t say you can’t butt fuck!”

They continued in that vein, ripping through their set with the harder, faster, punk songs like “Born Blonde,” sounding a little like The Trend, Hunx seeming like a strutting Johnny Thunders. Older and also good songs peppered the set, too, with the 60s-style girl-band doo wop from Too Young To Be In Love highlighted, Hunx dedicating “a sexy little song called ‘Bad Boy’ to a little town called Boston,” lamenting again between songs that he’d forgotten to lace his pockets with snacks, that he was so hungry, so high right now.

Toward the end of the set, Hunx offered to take his pants off if someone sucked his toes, an overly enthusiastic crowd member actually obliging. Hunx grabbed another crowd member’s PBR tallboy as he sang and grinded through the stage, then making good on his promise during their last song, “Lovers Lane,” discarding his pants, mesh tank already gone, exposing himself on stage in just a black thong [admittedly, it seemed a little like a metaphor, that sort of vulnerability on stage mimicking the honesty in some of Hunx’s lyrics—but anyway].

If I had found more cash in my purse, I would’ve bought their t-shirt, too.