“Doomsday Buttercup” is a pretty on-point song title from a record called Horror, and the one that Bartees Strange decided to open his show with when the tour hit Boston. I found it a little humorous that in the Discogs entry the style is labeled as “Dark Electro.” No one ever said crowd sourcing was 100% accurate, but there were more flashes of keyboards and electronic drum beats than his previous material.
He’s always had a pastiche of rock, hiphop, singer/songwriter styles anyway, so what’s another pattern in the quilt? The show started with a bit of a low energy vibe, Strange sitting down and alternating between guitar and keyboards. It looked like he changed up his band a bit as the keyboard/guitar player was the only one I recognized from when I saw him play last, in 2023.
Strange proved his fretwork prowess on “Wants Needs,” which then moved onto “Baltimore,” his musings on his peripatetic lifestyle. He saved some gas in the tank for the final sprint, including bangers “Boomer” and set closer “Mustang” brought the house down.
Ekko Astral were picked for the tour after Bartees found out about them from friends in the local DC scene; they wore their politics on their sleeve, wrote a song about how much Elon Musk sucks (no argument there), but their discordant and slightly atonal take on noisy punk rock landed flat to me. I was definitely an outlier though as they got a strong response from the crowd.
