Every great once in a while, an artist comes along that is impossible to shake. I found Blondshell in the most old school of manners- a late-night TV performance. Since then, her self-titled debut record has been in perpetual rotation. Bright Eyes was first introduced to me as the sound of someone inserting their hand into their chest, ripping out their heart, and handing it to you. Blondshell, on record, essentially does just that. I’ve been aching to experience this live show for months at this point.
We were treated to an opening set by NYC’s Hello Mary. It may be showing my age by saying that it was hard NOT to immediately conjure up Jackee from 227, uttering her signature phrase when hearing the band name. That all stopped when the dreamy, guitar-washed soundscapes of the band sent my head floating for 45 solid minutes. Taking dynamic queues from My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth, guitarist Helena Straight and drummer Stella Wave operated as lead singers, with their high-pitched voices blending together, weaving around each other in harmony and unison. Straight also played the role of bandleader, often directing the rest of the group with just the power of her eyes. At the center of the stage was the only non-singing member, bassist Mikaela Oppenheimer, who handled a lot of the melodies and hooks and pretty much centered the band while the other two were on a psychedelic joyride. Towards the end of the set, Straight broke a string, went to her backup guitar, and found THAT guitar also had a broken string. So, instead of ending the set early, she orchestrated key changes then and there, and the band followed suit.
The set change was nice and quick. The venue was packed solid (as it should be). The person right in front of me, in the prime “center barrier” spot, made the silly mistake of getting going to the bar between bands. It looked like he went through war to get back to his spot, which he managed to do milliseconds before Sabrina Teitelbaum (aka Blondshell) and band graced the stage. From the moment the show began, the audience/band connection was tight. Every word of the set opener, “Veronica Mars,” was sung by nearly every single person in the room. During “Sepsis,” Teitelbaum could feel that the audience was on board and let the room handle the line “It will hit all at once like sepsis,” and it kind of did, except the feeling was more like catharsis than sepsis.
The set was magic. The crowd treated the band with the kind of heroism that they should. The band was tight and having a blast. Teitelbaum’s voice is magic and acknowledges that the kind of bold, emotionally bare lyrics have connected with people. She played two covers: Samia’s “Charm You,” which really could’ve been a Blondshell song, and aimed for a dance party with a cover of the “now standard” of Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon,” which oddly enough was unknown to most of the crowd, also making me feel old.
This was the end of the tour, and Sabrina said that her voice was wearing out, which I couldn’t hear, but the audience was always there when she needed us. However, the set ender of the murder ballad “Salad,” possibly the wordiest song in a very wordy catalog of songs, had her requesting us to take *most* of the vocals. When most of the show, we were 100% on with the lyrics, our success rate was closer to 75% on this one. Still, it was a magical show with magical fans, and I can’t wait to do this again and again and again for decades to come.
