REVIEW: Bad Bad Hats, The Beths @ Brighton Music Hall 2/28
By Carrie Sheehan
Photos by Monica Sucic
On the night of February 28, a steady line filed into Brighton Music Hall for at least an hour after the doors opened, congregating to catch a duel-headliner show. Bad Bad Hats of Minneapolis and The Beths, all the way from New Zealand, had converged in Allston on a cold night to share their unique takes on the indie rock tradition. The layout of the stage was scaled back, with just two guitars, a bass, drum kit and simple lighting mostly unchanged for all three acts. The music was similarly consistent, unpretentious and excellent.
D.C. band Bad Moves served an opening set of driving, grungy power pop to the unusually packed house. Pulling from their recent debut album Tell No One, Emma Cleveland (bass, vocals), David Combs (guitar, vocals), Katie Park (guitar, vocals) and Daoud Tyler-Ameen (drums, vocals) energized and riling up the crowd with the stresses of imminent climate change and queer love at Bible camp. Songs “One Thing” and hit “The Verge” were the standouts of their set, where they most successfully balanced their impish energy and heavy instrumentals.
Bad Bad Hats members Kerry Alexander (vocals, guitar), Chris Hoge (guitar, vocals), Connor Davison (drums), and Cooper Doten (bass) took the stage next. Their renditions were not huge departures from studio versions, but something unmistakably is added in their live performance. Davison’s contributions as a newer member of the band playing the classics that predate his membership were especially clear, as I found my ears drawn to his drums throughout.
Alexander’s vocals are central to the band’s sound. Her control of her voice and lyricism give the band a unique quality among the indie rock crowd. And while her voice stands out in studio recordings, it particularly shines in person. Ethereal, light and clear above the comparatively darker rock sound of the band’s instrumentalists, Alexander’s vocal performance moves from the conveyance of her poignant songwriting to sharing the narratives behind her work with equal artistry. Having a unique voice is only part of her skill. She is a storyteller, and knows how to tie emotionally rich music together with friendly, even goofy crowd-work.
Debuting new song “Wide Right” off an EP slated for release in late March, Alexander enraptured the audience with the tale of Scotty Norwood’s infamous missed field goal for the Buffalo Bills. The song is an ode to the feeling of always missing out on love, and it is given new dimension in our visions of failed football dreams. At the midpoint of the set, Alexander painted a picture of herself, in the harsh Minnesota winter, writing one of the band’s first hits, “Super America,” off their debut EP It Hurts — sitting on a couch in “a comfortable pant” and eating pizza-flavored Combos “with [her] sorrows.” By the end of their set, it felt like the audience had been given a codex for her songwriting process, if we could just connect the dots.
Auckland rock band The Beths closed the night, with frontwoman Elizabeth Stokes (vocals, guitar) remarking on the crowd’s growth since their last Boston-area show. Starting somewhat subdued and building momentum, the back half of their set in particular was loaded with their signature layered vocal harmonies and infectious guitar riffs. I was particularly struck by their rendition of “Little Death” off 2018’s Future Me Hates Me. As the song swells to its climax, every aspect of the band seemed to be in perfect sync, voices and instruments alternating between isolated excellence and cooperative transcendence.
The structure of a dual headliner show felt, at times, rushed. Each headliner played a full 13 song set, with The Beths taking a two-song encore after 11. There was little time to digest Bad Bad Hats before The Beths took the stage, and even less time for them to talk to the crowd. However, sometimes one just needs to be reminded “We’re The Beths from New Zealand,” one more time before diving straight back into the music.
By the end of the night, each band had delivered solid, traditional renditions of their hits and a cohesive night of indie rock energy. Heading back out into the frigid Allston night, I was left with the image of Kerry Alexander and her pizza-pretzel treats fighting against the freezing seasonal affective disorder, and a feeling that the show offered the audience a warm respite. Briefly, we kicked our feet up with bands that shared an uplifting ethos and invigorating sound, almost as if they used the shared ingredients of rock — two guitars, a bass, drums, a voice or two — to cook us up a hearty stew, with a side of Combos for added crunch.
