Red braces over a shirtless torso, black lenses shielding eyes that dart across the room, ready for anything – that’s Charlie Steen of shame (all lowercase, please) commanding the room from his spot on stage. This London-based five piece took total control of Brighton Music Hall when they hit Boston for an early in the week show, supporting their newest record Cutthroat.
Five isn’t a lot of members for a band, but they took up a good chunk of the stage real estate with guitarists Eddie Green and Sean Coyle-Smith pushed to the wings in order to give bass player Josh Finerty maximum runway clearance for his non-stop aerial forays. I can’t be 100% certain but I’d reckon that the FAA got some unidentified flying object calls tonight.
My history with the band is not too vast, but the first time seeing them was at the 2019 edition of Boston Calling and they really resounded with me. A few records later and they’ve changed up their sound a bit but not too drastically. The 1-2 punch of “Cowards Around” and “Nothing Better” got the comfortably full room moving and once in motion, and object tends to stay in motion. Isaac Newton had it right.
I’m not sure why the band doesn’t have quite the same profile over here as contemporaries such as IDLES or Fontaines DC or Viagra Boys but maybe the masses will finally catch on, and if they continue to pen catchy songs like “Spartak” I bet they snare some additional listeners. The penultimate song was my favorite of theirs, the mighty “One Rizla” (which sent me to the internet as I originally thought it was a UK brand of soft drink) was a triumphant moment, Steen in the crowd and enjoying the moment as one.
The opening band Ribbon Skirt hails from Montréal and brought energy and a pretty sweet guitar tone to the party. After hearing a million records over my life it’s easy to connect some dots from a heretofore unknown band to some sort of antecedent, but this group proved to be a bit elusive. Some Cindy Lauper vocal hiccups on “Wrong Planet” were evident, but they were certainly not a new wave pop act (the shrieks towards the end that song might be a giveaway). They were not afraid to roam the stage and approach the rail, Anishinaabe singer Tashiina Buswa sometimes at the mic with a guitar and other times on top of the subwoofers and directly addressing the room. Likewise, guitarist Billy Riley actively moved his guitar into dive-bomb motion, coaxing all sorts of sounds from it. It’s always a pleasure when an opening band you know nothing about doesn’t make you constantly glance at your phone.
