boygenius, Bartees, bikes

I've been to hundreds of concerts in my life. Just about any time I get to witness a musician I really like performing live, it's a special experience, but after so many years and so many shows, it's rare that I come away from a concert thinking that it was truly unlike anything I'd ever previously seen. The boygenius show at Riis Park in Chicago on June 24 was one of those rare occasions. How so? I'll get to that in a bit.

I first became aware of the indie rock supergroup, made up of the trio of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, after they released their debut self-titled EP in 2018. I was already a huge fan of Julien Baker and had been ever since I went to see Daughter at Mr. Smalls near Pittsburgh in the summer of 2016 and this tiny young woman I'd never heard of before took the stage to open the night and proceeded to blow me away with her powerful voice and haunting melodies and lyrics. Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, however, had flown under my radar until 2018. In October of that year Dacus happened to headline Studio-a-rama, the annual festival put on by WRUW, the radio station of my alma mater and now employer Case Western Reserve University. I went and really enjoyed her performance. I remember seeing news about boygenius and how the trio were touring together the next month, each playing solo sets and also playing the songs from their EP together. The nearest show to me was in Detroit; unfortunately I hadn't yet gotten around to listening to Bridgers or boygenius and therefore didn't consider it worth the trip. That's something I've regretted for a long time and now regret even more.

That winter I have two specific memories of hearing specific songs on the radio in my car. The first was "Funeral" by Bridgers. I remember that I was driving to Ray's Indoor Bike Park after work and that this song came on the radio and I was just so stunned by the sad beauty of it. The second was "Me and My Dog," a standout boygenius track that I remember hearing while in the parking garage at work and staying in my car until the song ended. I quickly recognized the voice of Bridgers as the same voice that had captivated me on "Funeral." Right away I had to look up the band and I soon got their EP and fell in love with it.

Ever since, I'd hoped the band would release more material and tour again. A tantalizing hint at the possibility happened when Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus each released fantastic albums in the 2020-`21 pandemic era and each of the albums included a song on which all three boygenius members contributed vocals. The songs, it was revealed, had all been recorded on the same day. It was some time longer, though, before the March 2023 release of the record was announced, instantly launching the debut boygenius full-length and the tour that would come with it to the top of my anticipated music events list for the year.

Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus are all amazing solo artists. (Especially Baker, to me, but I'd respect any ranking or lack thereof.) The three of them together, though? They're just something else. The more I listen to the record the more I love it. So I couldn't wait to finally see the three of them together live (having already seen Baker five times, Dacus twice, and Bridgers once). The initial announcement of boygenius shows for 2023 came as part of the Re:SET concert series, an odd sort-of festival series that was "conceived as an artist and fan friendly alternative to the standard summer concert experience" according to the promoters. Each weekend of June saw three four-artist lineups rotating between three cities in a region across the three days. Boygenius headlined at shows also featuring Clairo, Dijon, and Bartees Strange, and I decided that traveling to Chicago to see them on Saturday the 24th was more appealing than going to Columbus on Friday the 23rd despite being a farther trip, so Erin and I made the drive from Cleveland after work on the 23rd and checked in late to an Airbnb in the Logan Square area.

The most notable aspect of our trip, other than the concert itself, was that we took our bicycles with us and made great use of them while in Chicago. The concert started in the late afternoon of the Saturday so earlier in the day we headed out on our bikes to explore. The Airbnb was very conveniently located right next to the Bloomingdale Trail, an elevated multi-use trail running for several miles above the streets of Chicago on what used to be a rail line. Riding on this trail was a revelation. Being able to ride a bike through a city, on an elevated path and therefore able to cross over streets without having to worry about cars or stopping at traffic lights, was amazing - I wish there could be trails like this everywhere!

After reaching the end of the trail we continued along surface roads to Lake Michigan. There were bike lanes nearly the whole way and we soon found ourselves in a sort of impromptu convoy of cyclists, which was another very fun experience. There's just something about being on a bike. When you're driving a car on a city street and a lot of other cars are going the same way, you get annoyed because the other cars are slowing you down and getting in your way. On a bicycle it's the opposite - the other cyclists aren't obstacles or enemies but allies and comrades and there's a sense of joy at using your own legs to propel yourselves through the city, feeling the wind on your face, and being around other people doing the same thing. In the last year I've come to appreciate much more the pleasures of just being on a bicycle. It used to be I tried to ride fast on almost all my bike rides. That's currently not something that would be healthy for me, which I'm definitely not happy about, but I think this experience has helped me see cycling at a moderate pace in a new light. Cycling is just such a wonderful mode of transportation whether you're going close to 20 miles per hour (like I almost always tried to do in the past) or little more than half that speed. It's been great, with Erin, to go on adventures where we can explore places together on our bikes.

 

We checked out the lakefront a bit and then headed back to the Airbnb to get ready for the concert - which we also rode bikes to (about 4.5 miles each way, partly on the aforementioned Bloomingdale Trail and mostly on bike lanes thereafter). On the way, we purchased large bottles of water in preparation for the frankly infuriating show policy that each guest could bring one sealed bottle of water and no refill stations were available. This was a terrible decision for a long, hot day, and predictably at least three concertgoers needed medical attention during the boygenius set after passing out. All in all, I can't say I have much if any praise for the Re:SET organizers, but the musicians made attending the event more than worth it.

We entered the festival grounds, a large grassy field with a few trees here and there, a stage at one end, and various booths around most of the sides, to find the completely unshaded pit area already packed. We had no interest in standing in the sweltering heat of the sun for hours so we found a spot near a large tree where some others had already gathered. I had seen headlining shows by each of Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus in the fall of 2021. All were great, but I enjoyed the Bridgers show at a large outdoor venue less than the Baker and Dacus shows in more intimate settings. This was partly because of being much more removed from the action and partly because some members of the Bridgers audience were annoyingly chatty. Although I was very hyped to see boygenius, I was worried that similarly annoying audience members might dampen the experience. I'd read complaints on a boygenius Facebook group about poorly behaved audiences with people theorizing that Gen Z kids never learned concert etiquette because of the pandemic.

The first act of the day was Bartees Strange, who I'd previously seen open for Dacus. The crowd was indeed quite chatty during his performance, although that's never been uncommon for openers at large shows. It was too bad, because he put on a great set which I did still enjoy a lot. I hadn't listened to his latest album so almost all the songs were unfamiliar to me, but I really liked what I heard. The highlight, though, was an excellent cover of a song I do know well, "About Today" by the National.

 

Next up was Dijon, an artist who I knew basically nothing about before the show. I feel this was a mistake on my part - he was fantastic! His music had some great grooves and I really dug the interesting soundscapes created by his band, with the unexpected combo of synths and slide guitar meshing nicely. Unfortunately much of the crowd again didn't seem very appreciative and chatted through his set.

I guess the next artist Clairo has garnered a good following among the Gen Z set because the crowd quieted down considerably for her performance. She was also very good, with some nice retro vibes to her indie pop/rock songs. Although I question a lot of the show organizers' decisions, they did well in putting a good lineup together.

The first three artists were all good, but boygenius were who we'd all been waiting to see. It was great fun for Erin and me to just observe all the diehard fans filling the venue. Most of them were much younger than us, and many had dressed for the occasion, some in boygenius-related costumes or homemade shirts with favorite lyrics like "Not Strong Enough" or "Always an Angel, Never a God" emblazoned across them. Another fun sighting was a little group of friends made up of male/female couples, the guys wearing shirts that said "boy" and the girls wearing shirts that said "genius." There was the sense that this wasn't just a show. It was an Event. It was probably a landmark moment in a lot of those kids' lives. And heck, by the end of the night I came away thinking it was a landmark moment in my life too.

What made this show unique among all the shows I've ever seen in my life? Boygenius are very early in their career as a band - they've released one EP and one LP. Therefore, a boygenius setlist could contain every song they've ever released (although at this show "Bite the Hand" was omitted in favor of new, unreleased track "Boyfriends"). I've seen shows like that before, but they've always been in fairly small venues. I'd never seen a band play almost their entire catalog in front of a crowd nearly this huge and when it comes to the type of music I generally listen to, that's something that basically never happens. It requires a band to dramatically explode in popularity in a way and to an order of magnitude that just doesn't tend to happen for an indie band that's only released one album. And clearly boygenius being a supergroup with one member, Bridgers, having previously shot to stardom is a unique factor here, but there was something else about this show, something that wasn't present when I saw Bridgers play in 2021.

The crowd for the Phoebe Bridgers show was definitely full of huge Phoebe Bridgers fans, but there were also a lot of kids who seemed to be there to hang out with their friends and as a result the crowd was, as I mentioned before, annoyingly chatty at times. This crowd was different. In this crowd, it seemed, everyone was a huge boygenius fan. And not just a huge fan. A lot of these kids worship boygenius. Which made the show something like a religious experience. And like a good religious experience, the proceedings truly held the rapt attention of everyone present. After grumbling about chatty audiences and other irritating audience behavior at most other large shows I've attended recently, I think back to that boygenius show and marvel more and more at the fact that at no point during boygenius's set did anyone in range of my ears do or say anything to detract from everyone's enjoyment of the beautiful music coming from the stage.

To summarize what made this show so unique and special in my concertgoing experience: it's the only time I've ever seen a band I love (or any band, for that matter) play very nearly every song they've ever released in front of a crowd of thousands of people. And to make it even more special, it seemed most everyone there was just as captivated by the music as I was.

It truly is a magical experience when you're at a great concert in a crowd of people who are all there for the music, and the music (perhaps with audience members joining in) is the only sound entering your ears. It's like being under a wonderful spell. A spell that can sadly be broken by a single inconsiderate jerk, which is maybe why it's so much rarer to experience at really big shows. And this was a crowd of mostly Gen Z kids who, as mentioned before, probably had their social development hindered by a pandemic. Just for being able to so fully command their attention, boygenius deserve enormous praise.

"The boys," as fans like to call the trio, were appropriately introduced by "The Boys Are Back In Town" playing over the speakers, then kicked off their set backstage, with live video projected on a large screen behind the stage, the three of them huddled together and serenading the crowd with the beautiful harmonies of the record's opening track "Without You Without Them." Then they took the stage to raucous applause and proceeded to play one of the best series of 20 songs that I've ever seen live. I realized during the show that not only do boygenius have no bad songs, they also have no songs that are merely "good" - every song on both their EP and their LP falls somewhere on the continuum from great to superlative.

This is a band that truly is more than the sum of its parts, and that's saying a lot because "the sum of its parts" would already be pretty damn good. Listening to boygenius truly does feel like taking the best parts of what makes each of these three young women's music so great and mixing them together in the most perfect way. What makes seeing them live even more special is how clear it is that not only do they meld so well as musicians, they do so perhaps even more as human beings. The friendship the three clearly have with each other is a beautiful thing. They seem so much happier on stage together than they do when performing as individuals. The sheer joy emanating from Baker in particular is delightful to behold. That friendship is a theme that comes across clearly on the record and its accompanying music videos. Although each of the three is known for making "sad music," when they join forces their output is, at times, downright uplifting. With a healthy dose of sadness still there for good measure, but that makes the uplifting parts extra cathartic.

Nearly every part of the concert could be described as a highlight, but one of the biggest highlights was when that trio of songs from their most recent albums - Dacus's "Please Stay" (the one song during the set that got me to "cry with the teenagers," to quote an iconic boygenius lyric), Baker's "Favor," and Bridgers's "Dreamland Too" - was played in order. Each of the songs is just stunningly beautiful. The lyrics, the music, the incredible harmonies. And the way the songs go together, the progression from the devastating "Please Stay" to the hopeful "Dreamland Too," it was all just sublime and gave me chills.

The main set concluded, not surprisingly, with "Not Strong Enough." "Not Strong Enough" is my favorite boygenius song, my favorite song of 2023, and perhaps my favorite song in quite a bit longer than that. Also, the moment where the repeated "Always an angel, never a god" harmonies of the bridge build to a raw scream and then Dacus's voice comes in above it with an exuberantly sung "I don't know why I am, the way I am" has to be one of my favorite moments in a song ever.

It's a song that for much of this year has felt like my theme song, with that "I don't know why I am the way I am" chorus and me wondering why I am the way I am and trying to stop myself from "spinning out about things that haven't happened." And then I think, that must be a challenge for most of the young people who have come of age during the last few years. No wonder boygenius have such a hold over that demographic. They're a band truly fit for this moment in time - and yet also somehow timeless.

Being in a huge crowd of people all joyfully singing along to this anthem was one of those moments that makes one really feel alive. I think that's the best way to summarize the feeling.

After a two song encore, the show was over, and it started to sink in that I really had just experienced something unlike any concert I'd attended in my life, and also that it was one of the best concerts I'd ever seen. With that realization, I told Erin that I needed to buy a shirt to commemorate the experience, and I did, and then we joined the throng of exhilarated concertgoers exiting the festival grounds and made our way back to our bikes. As we rode in the direction of the Airbnb (in fact, a little ways beyond it at first for a late night drink at a cocktail bar), it struck me that here Erin and I were, riding our bikes through the streets of Chicago at night after having attended such a monumental show, and this, I thought, was one of the coolest experiences I'd ever had.

The next day brought more bike riding and sightseeing along Chicago's lakefront before we headed home. It was a wonderful weekend.

I started writing this post almost two months ago. It's been an extremely busy time in our lives. I have another post that I started much, much longer ago and still have to finish. In the time between my starting this post and now, Erin and I went to another music festival for which we also stayed at an Airbnb and rode bikes to the show (and also another festival at which Bartees Strange played), the National's Homecoming in Cincinnati, and it was also great. Live music and bicycling are two of my favorite things in the world. Combining the two? Well, that's hard to beat. And how great to have someone to do that with me.