The teenaged punk rockers of The Linda Lindas came to Boston on April twenty-third for the last US stop of their No Obligation tour. A diverse array of fans of all ages gathered at the sold-out Paradise Rock Club for a night of joyous, chaotic fun.
Many fans queued early around the block in anticipation for the show, and Pinkshift enjoyed a nicely-filled venue by the time they started their opening set. They kicked things off right with an exciting set of hardcore punk tunes that had the front row head-banging along. With the bar set high, The Linda Lindas rose to the task of maintaining that momentum.
The Linda Lindas came out swinging full force when they opened their set with the punchy title track of their latest album No Obligation. Despite the band’s youth, they displayed an obviously comfortable and experienced stage presence, performing with an infectious energy. They sustained that vigor with smiles as they bounced through an energetic setlist that featured every song from No Obligation and half of their first album Growing Up.
They also performed a handful of covers that alluded to some notable highlights fromin the young group’s already impressive career: the cover of “Rebel Girl” that landed them an early gig with Bikini Kill and credits in Amy Poehler’s film Moxie, the “Found a Job” cover the band recorded for the Stop Making Sense Talking Heads tribute album, and a “When I Come Around” cover that referenced their 2024 tour with Green Day.
The show culminated with Pinkshift re-emerging from backstage and joining The Linda Lindas as they danced around the stage for a fittingly kinetic encore to an electrifying, more-than-obligatory set.
Check out all of Greg’s photos from the show below.
April 22nd, 2025. Orla Gartland poses backstage for some portraits before her electric performance at Paradise Rock Club. Photo by Samantha Davidson.
Irish grunge-pop superstar Orla Gartland stopped by Paradise Rock Club as part of her The Hero Tour North America 2025. After selling out the Arts at the Armory in November, Boston welcomed Gartland back to a sold-out Paradise Rock Club, a venue with over 2 times the capacity. The night began with indie rock artist FIGHTMASTER. Sporting a white shirt, black jeans, and a crisp black vest, their warm voice and distorted guitar commanded the crowd.
The song “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler aptly began to play, and Gartland and her band emerged to thunderous cheers. The stage was adorned with two neon shooting star signs and Gartland’s telephone cord design on the backdrop. She strutted out in a blue pinstripe shirt and matching bloomers along with a graphic t-shirt, knee-high socks, and silver statement jewelry, immediately captivating the crowd the moment she stepped on stage. The singer kicked off the night with the electric track “SOUND OF LETTING GO,” which got the crowd going with its rhythmic percussion and cathartic lyrics. Her spirit was infectious, all high kicks, jumps, and arm movements inspired the venue to dance along. She held the energy high throughout the rest of the night, continuing to dance even when she played guitar. Suffice to say Gartland brought her signature raw and high-intensity performance style to Boston, leaving fans ready for another round. Make sure to catch her live before The Hero Tour North America 2025 ends in May by buying tickets here.
Check out all of Samantha’s photos from the show below.
mxmtoon put on an exquisite performance of the “Liminal Space Tour” at Roadrunner. Barefoot and unable to contain her excitement, it was clear mxmtoon was thrilled to be putting on a show for this crowd. She jumped around the stage, smiling ear-to-ear the entire evening. She delivered powerful, emotional performances of both fan favorites like “Prom Dress” as well as pieces from her newer album, Liminal Space (2024). Though she may be small, her voice and performance abilities are as mighty as ever.
The poster for the next Cultural Crossroad event on April 19th, 2025.
For the past few months, We Black Folk has been booking shows and programming to highlight the history and contributions that Black people have made to folk, bluegrass, country – any Americana sub-genre you can think of. Back in February, the organization put on a two day festival at Club Passim in Harvard Square that featured performances by Grace Givertz, Aisha Burns, Stephanie McKay, and more. The festival came together through the efforts of HipStory, BAMS Fest and Cliff Notez, who also hosted and performed at the festival.
More recently, We Black Folk has undertaken a new event series called Cultural Crossroads, which explores the intersection of genres from African and Latinx cultures, with their roots within the African Diaspora. With their first event already in the books, Cultural Crossroads is gearing up for its sophomore effort on Saturday, April 19th. The monthly series is a partnership with Ágora Cultural Architects, an initiative that amplifies Latin American arts.
The second edition of the show will feature performances by Fabiola Méndez, Kina Zoré, and Andrew Sue Wing. You might remember Méndez when she joined reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny during his NPR TIny Desk Concert. Kina Zoré are a Boston-based Afro-pop group led by Helder Tsinine, a Mozambican vocalist.
“Cultural Crossroads isn’t just a concert — it’s a gathering of generations, genres, and geographies,” says Cliff Notez. “We’re creating a space where Black and Afro-diasporic folk artists can feel seen, honored, and celebrated in the city of Boston.”
Tickets for the event are available on a pay-what-you-can structure. You can RSVP for your tickets here. Show starts at 6:30 at CROMA, an events space within the Arlington Street Church in Back Bay.
But enough from us, hear more about straight from Cliff:
April 15th, 2025. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds perform “Frog” from their newest album Wild God on The Wild God Tour. Photo by Samantha Davidson.
Australian rock band Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds brought The Wild God Tour to Boston for an electric opening night. Their alternative-punk style translated well in an arena, where fans quickly filled the venue and buzzed with anticipation. Cave emerged to thunderous applause, rocking a crisp grey suit and wide spotted tie. The band dove into the song “Frogs” from their newest album Wild God, immediately hypnotizing the crowd with sharp percussion, sparkling instrumentation, and Cave’s deep, gravelly, and resonant voice. The Seeds consisted of a full band and three-person choir in silver cloaks.
The tour brought a rare stage setup I have never seen; a catwalk that extended along the barricade at fans’ eye level, which allowed Cave to hold people’s hands, crowd surf, and interact directly with the audience. He wasted no time heading to the pit and strutted back and forth at the barricade midway through the first song. The band held the energy high throughout the rest of the night, naturally changing pace to a sway during songs where Cave sat down at the piano, to moments of high intensity where the singer was jumping down the catwalk. They finished out the night with two encores, playing a selection of deep cuts and fan favorites. Make sure to catch Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds live before The Wild God Tour in North America ends in May. Buy tickets here.
Check out all of Samantha’s photos from the show below.
Indie-folk rock band Penny & Sparrow are back on tour and playing Boston in support of their new album, Lefty. The new 20-track album was born in a retrofitted garden shed turned recording space.
There’s a dusty southern influence on Lefty reminiscent of another mid-fi folk duo from Texas, Hovvdy. As Hovvdy have trafficked in slick production in recent years, Penny & Sparrow have also updated their sound on tracks like “Even Keeled.” Penny & Sparrow prefer the best of both worlds however and still deal in vintage tones, such as tasteful saturation and moogy synth flutes on the next track, “Alphabet.” Track-by-track it’s a bit of a whiplash but on the whole it works.
What sets Penny & Sparrow apart from the rest of the indie folk flock is their experimental flourishes. Notice the vocal flutters bringing the ear candy to “Arm Candy.” The fritillary grace notes would be lost however if they weren’t standing on solid ground: distinguished vocal melodies cascade down clever acoustic guitar chords throughout. The more traditionally arranged indie folk songs like “Mattering Ram” pack more of a punch but they do so partly because of the variety and sonic depth of the LP. The result is a gently devastating indie-folk record. I’ll be curious to hear what P & S agree to bring to the stage, and what they decide to leave in the shed.
Have you had enough? This is both the name of the song that Poppy opened her show with, and what my brain said at the end of her set, after an hour of ceaseless and thrilling pop-metal pummeling. The unclassifiable Poppy brought her They’re All Around Us tour to Boston on Friday, 4/4, to a jam-packed House of Blues in support of her truly excellent 2024 album, “Negative Spaces.” It was set to be a night of catchy rhythms and deafening guitars, and it delivered on all fronts.
Before Poppy was an opener, House of Protection, who are not an evil universe of local favorites House of Harm. Seeing as Poppy’s music is a real melting pot, I decided to go into this band totally blind – to say they crushed it is an understatement. The duo – guitar and drums, with both men handling vocals – put on one of the most energetic sets Boston has seen in a while. Stephen Harrison and Aric Improta both got their start in Fever 333 and, although they’ve departed that group, they carry the same chaotic noise-punk influences. Harrison was in the crowd singing and playing in the midst of a circle pit on the second song. At one point the band paused so Improta could do a backflip. At another, Harrison encouraged three circle pits and said, “If you get hurt, you’ve got two days to recover.” The two guys never took a second to breathe during their 30-minute set, and it wasn’t because they were compensating for anything; the music was excellent. Improta is an outstanding drummer, and the duo produced the same blend of industrial-rap-nu metal fusion that Poppy does. They were utterly electrifying, and had the crowd in the palm of their hands. Luckily, there weren’t many latecomers on this night – the HOB was already pretty packed when House took the stage.
Photo Credit: Alana Lopez
Ultimately though, the people were there for Poppy. Although Poppy has lived in LA for years and did not address her local connections, she is a Massachusetts native – we take those. The locals shared their love for Poppy as she emerged suddenly through a curtain dressed in all-white, contrasting with her three bandmates in all black with ski masks, and jumped into the aforementioned “have you had enough?”. Poppy has had a bizarre career trajectory, starting off as a satirical YouTuber and bubblegum pop artist before shifting, abruptly, into sludgy metal. She’s found herself at the forefront of the nu-metal revival, and a younger shift towards incorporating metal into other genres. All of this came to head last summer when she joined Knocked Loose for a raucous performance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” which became immediately controversial because it could’ve been terrifying to the small children watching at 1am. Have no fear, Poppy brought this energy all night.
Poppy’s set only lasted around an hour, but she and her band burned through sixteen songs. The set was split pretty evenly between songs from her recent Negative Spaces album and 2020’s I Disagree, an album she had to pause a tour for due to COVID. She also busted out “Scary Mask,” one of her first metal songs, and “V.A.N.,” a Bad Omens song she guests on. The set showed how well-rounded she is, incorporating catchier songs like “I Disagree” and “crystallized” alongside heaters like the industrial “Sit/Stay” and the pummeling “the center’s falling out.” The latter was the wildest song performed all night, with full screaming and Stephen Harrison coming back out for guitar and vocals. Poppy was animated all night, often jogging in place as if she was in Stop Making Sense, but she really let loose during “center.” After fourteen songs, the band walked off, followed soon by a voiceover conversation between Poppy and an unseen entity, hyping the crowd for an encore. She performed the recent songs “they’re all around us” and the softer “new way out” to bring the night to a close. It was a fun, raucous night and a victory lap for a local gone big.
Check out all of Alana’s photos from the show below.
Sometimes we like to think of Allston Pudding as less of an official music publication and more of a community-minded arts project on which the focus is music. And so every once in a while we hand over the keys to a guest artist or writer outside our staff to give our digital pages a different sort of flavor. Today we have another one of those moments with friend of the blog and Ratchella co-founder Emma Caviness providing us a dispatch from her whirlwind time in Austin for SXSW last month. Read on for some stray thoughts and excellent live digital paintings of the many things Emma saw in Texas.
Hello, this is Emma Caviness, come with me on a field trip to SXSW!
CDSM live at Cheer Up Charlies
The week began at a CDSM (Celebrity Death Slot Machine) show. The band has been described by FLOOD Magazine as a 6 member “freak out post-punk group” from Atlanta. They started winning me over before playing with their reversible gym class pinnie uniforms. And then they kept winning me over by throwing a dodgeball right at my face. Just kidding. They didn’t do that, but they did look like the high school senior football players in my freshman year gym class that would gang up on the freshman girls. I digress. Moral of the story is, YOU’RE GONNA WANNA DANCE TO THIS.
Switch Angel live at Coconut Club
On the next night of athletics, I dressed up as someone who went to techno shows to see Jenna Shaw and Boston local Switch Angel on the roof of Coconut Club. With most of a Redbull in my blood, a grape popsicle style vodka slushie in hand, and no overly coked out boys encroaching on my space, I changed religions from “someone who grew up catholic” to “someone who vows to go to more techno shows.” No hard drugs needed to transcend, just… a routine serving of THIS.
Sofie Royer live at Cheer Up Charlies
No extended childhood/high school metaphor would be complete without The Prettiest, Most Popular Girl You Have A Crush On: It was a gift to see Sofie Royer’s last SXSW set at the iconic venue Cheer Up Charlie’s. I experienced Popular Girl’s Side Kick Transcendence when multiple people deemed me an authority and asked me “do you know who this is?” which caused my d*ck to grow 3 sizes Grinch style, but with pride. She sounded great live by the way.
Fantasy of a Broken Heart live at Hotel Vegas
The best showcase, hands down, was put on by the record labor Dots Per Inch under the lunar eclipse in the hallowed halls of homebase Hotel Vegas. None of the musicians in these bands looked like they would try to knock any of my teeth out during P.E. This is especially true for Fantasy of a Broken Heart, a Brooklyn band with a Bushwick version of Timothee Chalamet as front man, and the Venus Twins on bass & drums. In fact, this band resembled my fellow huddled-in-the-corner gym class survivors. During their set, I experienced a momentary psychosomatic spiritual linkage with Fantasy of a Broken Heart drummer (also 1 Venus Twin of the Venus Twins) catalyzed by my catharsis post break-up euphoria joy scream during their song “Loss.” I did not have as intimate an experience during Amiture’s set that followed, but with another great view of the drum set, I got to watch the most insane drumming delivered by a mafia-looking fellow in a button down with a cross necklace bouncing frenetic against his chest.
Crowd show between sets at Hotel Vegas
Now it’s 1am and the last act is up. To my dismay, I see LUCY (Cooper B. Handy) take the stage ALONE, with no instruments. I am completely confused by this because LUCY is a cult favorite of many respected friends, and this looks like a set up for failure. But lo, this night of mesmerizing artistry is not over. After the first song or so, once the rhythm of his performance was established, my dismay evacuated. I’m… still finding the right words to explain what I’ve learned about the artist known as LUCY (Cooper B. Handy). He is thorough, complete, and all encompassing with his performance; he keeps the audience company, even in between songs, whispering “Austin, Austin, Austin, everybody doing okay?, Austin, Austin” between each. Lyrically, he is poetic and tender. Sonically, he is stylized and bordering on absurd. Visually… he is a beautiful boy with a hat and a watch. I took every chance I could get to see him perform again, and with his other project Taxidermists (their new album just came out!).
The Taxidermists live at Hotel Vegas
SXSW continued on for several more days, but these 3 nights stand out in particular as moments of dancing and artistry. And these three nights of transcendence culminated with the lunar eclipse. I looked for the moon the whole walk home from Hotel Vegas and only after nearly making it back did I spot it: reddish, dim, yet whole. Just like a dodgeball approaching from a distance at high velocity.
Emma Caviness is an interdisciplinary artist based in Somerville, MA, producing live portraits of people, concerts, trees, rocks, etc. You can find more of Emma’s work at her website. The pieces included in this article are available as prints for sale directly from the artist via the site. You can also book Emma to capture performances at a show.
The iconic Rebecca Black returned to The Sinclair on March 31, a couple years since her first headlining visit to Massachusetts. This time, she was back with her sophomore album SALVATION and another killer show.
The electronic duo Blue Hawaii opened the show with their pulsing bass-lines and quirky vibes, and their upbeat performance set the tone for the evening. Next, Rebecca Black’s arrival to the stage was heralded by her two dancers. She teased a segment of her infamous viral song “Friday” as an intro to her set in an acknowledgement of her past, but she quickly moved on to the real meat of her performance with a string of tracks from SALVATION.
The utterly packed crowd at the sold-out show nevertheless managed to find the space to dance along as Black and her dancers kept up the energy. She exuded pure confidence as she served up a flawless, glamorous, and extensively choreographed performance of her new music to a strong crowd response. Although the new album was released only a month prior, it seemed that most fans could readily sing the lyrics back to Black as she powered through her set.
The crowd loudly vocalized their approval as she made her way through the entirety of SALVATION, several selections from her 2021 EP Rebecca Black Was Here, and a taste of her first album Let Her Burn. The polished experience was another amazing Rebecca Black show at The Sinclair, and a reminder of the steady growth that she has undergone as an artist and performer.
Check out all of Greg’s photos from the show below.
Flipturn brought a much-needed burst of energy to a Roadrunner crowd clearly carrying the weight of midterms and long winter nights as part of their Burnout Days Tour.
In fact it was the most packed I’ve seen the Brighton venue in a while — wall to wall with fans who showed up not just to listen, but to feel something together. Before the show, I met two girls at the barricade who had already been to a couple dates on this tour. They brought the best energy — hyping up both Flipturn and opener Arcy Drive like pro concert-goes. They also organized a beautiful fan project for the night: handing out pieces of orange paper for the crowd to place over their phone flashlights during “Sunlight,” a track off Burnout Days.
When the song began, Roadrunner glowed with a sea of soft amber lights. For a moment, it really did feel like sunlight — not just the song, but the emotion of it had filled the room.
For everyone packed in that night it was a moment of reprieve, and a reminder of how powerful music can be when it meets you right where you are. The band still has a lot of shows left on their tour and many festival dates over the summer. Catch them while you can!
