It was the loudest of times, it was the sweatiest of times, and much like Dickens plainly wrote, last night Bostonist had everything before us and nothing before us. Like any Friday night, the potential to just stay at home and snuggle up to a good book was calling as the scattered rain showers began falling. However, Bostonist decided to forgo the comforts of being dry and head out to two house shows in Allston.
The ludicrously-named Gay Gardens—a house on Greylock Street that recently opened its basement doors to a vast array of concerts—played host to local acts Many Mansions and Big Digits, with Milwaukee's hip-hop pride and joy Juiceboxxx sandwiched in between; meanwhile, an all-out punk show blowout was going down at an inconspicuous house on Franklin street featuring O Pioneers!!! Twenty minutes' walking distance and a chunk of the Massachusetts Turnpike separated the two gigs, but Bostonist remained as intrepid as ever, set on welcoming the springtime weather with a couple of downright tried-and-true house shows.
As with any concert, timing is of the essence: in the case of shows hosted in someone's basement, it's an essence that isn't quite as immediate as others. These aren't the kind of gigs that provide the monetary backbone for Live Nation, where every performance must be timed to the second. And so Bostonist showed up to Gay Gardens perhaps a little too early, walking in to the barren basement of a house to find Juiceboxxx chatting with a couple of folks.
After hanging around for a while waiting for things to kick off, Bostonist made the wet trek over to Franklin Street to find a packed house watching Fort! the Band! set up. The scene was everything people who love house shows dream about: a grimy basement packed so tight there's condensation dripping off the pipes, where you can't tell whose sweat belongs to whom, where teenagers buy cans of beer from older concertgoers and a couple of parents pretend not to notice, and it all smells like your armpits have a bad smoking habit. Fort!'s set may have been hampered by a PA that goes bust a couple of songs into the set, but Bostonist admires the atmosphere and the heart of every person jam packed and moshing up front.
However, soon enough it was off back to Gay Gardens, and Bostonist made in time to see the entire house taken over by a quorum of hipsters while inside Juiceboxxx was steam-rolling through his set. Juiceboxxx's set is the kind of thing that makes house parties legendary. A large swarth of folks half dance and mosh in front of the stage while Juiceboxxx himself grabs every person he can get a hold of and belts out his rhymes inches from people's faces. All the while his geek-inclined raps might make people giggle, Juiceboxxx's performance is downright frightening: he jumps into the air so high that it's not unthinkable that he would knock himself out on the ceiling, he roils around on the ground and while slamming the mic onto his forehead, and has a general disregard for his own welfare. But man, is it a performance. Juiceboxxx closed with "Center Stage" and the crowd hoisted his body up to a ceiling that was pock-marked with holes from previous shows. At the end of the set Juiceboxxx walked away with some battle wounds and Bostonist walked away towards Franklin Street.
It was past midnight when Bostonist arrived, just in time to shout along with Interobang!? during their set-closing cover of Fugazi's "Waiting Room." A handful of minutes later and the basement was practically empty as O Pioneers!!! jammed their equipment to the performance space and did their best to set up quickly. At a quarter to one, the band started up without any warning or notice, and the handful of folks whose evenings weren't cut short by bedtimes or bus schedules ran to the back of the basement.
The O Pioneers!!! set was a dramatic change from the other bands on the bill, as the trio have a command over the faulty sound and a certain performance chemistry that most aspiring punk bands can only dream about. It's easy to see why O Pioneers!!! have cultivated a rabid, cult fan base among fans of straightforward punk, with their ear-shattering blasts of three-chord punk and a heartfelt performance to boot. Their set was a bit truncated due to the hour of the evening/morning, but the eternally-grateful Texas band sped through a variety of songs in a short amount of time. The end of their set was greeted with a rousing round of applause from a thinned-out crowd, and Bostonist ambled into the streets, ready to make the long walk home for a well-deserved night's sleep.
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