MisterWives, joan, and Moody Joody deliver a Halloween show that feels distinctly different in the post-election climate.
Concerts usually follow a predictable track. There’s a familiar opening song that everyone knows. We have the usual ebbs and flows between quicker and slower tunes, and a final encore. Sometimes, the songs themselves have predictable chord progressions.
On the other hand, some artists jump in, romp around on stage, control and engage the crowd, run right up to the edge of the stage, and in effect create a HIIT class for the audience, the singer, and the photographers. It’s a challenge, not just to capture, but also a challenge to the expectations. And that is Mandy Lee.
During a break of that stage dance, Mandy Lee, lead singer of MisterWives reminded and pleaded: Ladies are “marching to the polls this election.”
In an election season with a mix of tricks and treats, a Halloween show complete with costumes felt like a welcome moment. A sweet treat and a break from the rhetoric.
The show was a reminder to Mandy Lee that her fan base, who showed up in costumes of all kinds, who made heart signs back and forth on stage, and who asked Lee to do a gender reveal live on stage (it’s a boy!), are all the “the greatest community we have ever been a part of.”
That community participated in singing along, lyrics tumbling from the upper tiers of the House of Blues, with the emblematic words of SUPERBLOOM finding homes in the space: “I deserve congratulations.”
The timing. The placement. The precision. The energy. The engagement with the audience. The ascension of MisterWives floats like ghosts to some other realm propelled by red light and leaving trails of spiderwebs and reverb.
The House of Blues is a welcome venue; there is space to roam. There is an available set of bathrooms. They have friendly security. It felt supported and warm. We were welcomed by aliens and sequins courtesy of the space-theme costumes of Moody Joody, completed with an accompaniment of guitar echoes.
Should the show have landed the following week, it could have been a well needed break in a heavy set of days when for some the name fit the current sphere: The tour’s name in Boston on October 30th was changed from “Just For One Night,” to “Just For One Nightmare.”
Boston, a largely blue city in a blue state, finds peaks and valley in its volume. The celebration of the Celtics: Loud. The thud of the current Patriots: Quiet. The House of Blues brings a combination of sound, just feet from Fenway. For joan, on a selection of songs, the loud bass ripped through the venue. It was the kind of noise that shakes you, wakes you up, and disrupts everything.
Loud music cures me. It pushes me into action. It’s a shot. It’s caffeine. But alternatively, too, it’s possible for a silent moment to speak volumes. Today, for some, it feels as though they are living through the lyrics as sung by MisterWives: “sadness is quiet rage.”
Discourse around the election cycle often centers on lightness and dark. And so this evening, with lantern lights and flickers of orange, “Just For One Nightmare” provided the opposite: An evening out with friends, old and new, living totally in the moment. A community.
