REVIEW: Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus @ Orpheum Theatre 11/08

By Kate Gilberd

The folk rock stylings of the supergroup Boygenius, made up of headliner Julien Baker with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, captivated the crowd at Boston’s Orpheum Theatre on Thursday.

Each artist first performed on her own. Dacus started the show right on time with a 30-minute set, beginning with an unreleased song that featured only Dacus and her guitar without the rest of her band. The stripped-down version fit perfectly in the context of Bridgers’s and Baker’s powerful ballads, soon to come. From then on, Dacus and her band played several other songs from her new release Historian and an old favorite from her first album, filling in the gaps with easy quips to the crowd. During her closing song, “Night Shift,” her soaring, confrontational vocals and shredded guitar tone left the stage humming with energy heading into the next act.

After a break, Bridgers, looking ghostly in her long black skirt and light hair, played an extremely tight set. She was joined by her band and featured violinist Camille Faulkner. Bridgers’s soft, ethereal voice, with back-up harmonies by drummer Marshall Vore and bassist Anna Butterss, calmed the room with songs from her album “Stranger in the Alps.” The standout of her set was certainly her closer, “You Missed My Heart.” The only instrumental accompaniment for this song came from keyboardist Nick White and second guitarist Harrison Whitford, who played an incredible lap steel guitar. The emotionally charged performance began with Vore and Bridgers singing shoulder-to-shoulder at center, and ended with Bridgers kneeling on the edge of the stage, looking down, as if visiting the grave of a loved one. The moment of silence that followed was just as deafening as the applause that followed Bridgers offstage.

Being relatively unfamiliar with Baker’s work, I was unsure she could convey the kind of emotional power Bridgers had with her set. I shouldn’t have worried. The soft-spoken powerhouse proved that she was headlining the show for a reason. Baker had the audience hanging on her every syllable as she and Faulkner delivered songs like “Sprained Ankle” and “Everybody Does” from her 2015 album Sprained Ankle, then brought the emotion and range on her own with “Turn Out the Lights” and the heartbreaking “Go Home,” off of her 2017 release. Her voice was captivatingly smooth no matter the range, but revealed a hint of texture on the high notes that added an edge to her flawless performance. Baker was the most visibly emotional, and left many audience members with tears in their eyes by the conclusion of her 11-song set. I was left wanting more, and the concluding act did not disappoint.

Dressed in matching embroidered blazers, Boygenius finally took the stage to play through all six songs of their self-titled EP, released earlier this year. The trio’s easy demeanor and effortless harmonies brought to mind famous folk girl groups like the Wailin’ Jennys, but with an edge. It was as if the three had always existed in tandem. They took cues from one another with ease, and watched with quiet reverence during solo moments. The charged intensity of songs like “Me & My Dog” and “Salt in the Wound” gave way gracefully to softer moments, like those in “Stay Down” and “Souvenir.” For their closer, “Ketchum, ID”, the three women gathered around one mic and Baker’s acoustic guitar to share a quiet, reflective moment with the audience. Their soft, supportive harmony closed the show perfectly: it was a culmination of every compelling moment over the course of the night.

Boygenius will likely be a short-lived band, as they have not announced plans to release a full album or second EP. No matter what the final outcome is for the group, though, the concert at the Orpheum felt like a special occasion–the kind of night that doesn’t happen very often. It isn’t every day that three exceptional singer-songwriters come together to share their passion with a crowd of that size. Each member of Boygenius clearly expressed to the audience how grateful they were to be up on that stage, but witnessing their performance was truly our privilege.