Underground shoegaze darlings Drop Nineteens have returned for their first tour in over 30 years in congruence with their first album release in the same span. Hailing from my hometown of Boston, Massachusetts, Drop Nineteens are mainstays in the canon of Boston underground rock bands, having emerged from the student radio and music scene of Boston University. They also commonly feature on “best of shoegaze” lists with their legendary record Delaware, featuring one of the most eye-catching album covers of the 90s. I caught their show at Bar Le Ritz in Montréal, a lowkey venue tucked away in the Park Extension neighbourhood.
Opening for the Boston natives was newcomer Olivia O., a singer songwriter creating ethereal soundscapes with live looping pedals and a haunting voice. Olivia introduced herself and jumped right into her first song, One Hit Wonder, starting in absolute silence and slowly building a layered backing track using just her voice and a tambourine. Olivia chatted with the crowd between songs, nervously breaking the ice and getting tremendous support from the crowd in return. It’s incredibly difficult to maintain a stage presence as an opener, especially as a solo artist, but Olivia O. managed very well before jumping into her next song, a new release called No Bones, Sickly Sweet. Olivia proceeded to decorate the stage with a handmade, sharpie poster with some of the song’s lyrics, evocative of the Bedroom Rock nature of her sound. After playing a short set, Olivia prepared the crowd for Drop Nineteens and thanked them for inviting her on tour. You keep with Olivia O.'s music on her Instagram which can be found here: https://www.instagram.com/wormsheriff/.
Olivia O. performing their opening song
Shoegaze is one of those genres that is heavily influenced by listening conditions. Proper headphones, a cool, dark room, and ample time to play a project end to end is paramount to a good -gaze experience. Alternatively, blasting the music in a tiny, cramped venue and positioning yourself as close to a speaker as possible works well too. That is exactly what I did to ensure the wall of sound I was looking for from Drop Nineteens.
The Drops kickstarted their concert with fan favourite Delaware, with its iconic tinny, hypnotic intro before jumping into a fury of vacuum cleaner guitars and a mesmerizing drum line that shot the crowd into a pit. Vocalist Greg Ackell sings with such effortless abandon, but commands a presence you wouldn’t quite expect from his dad-rock aesthetic. The band switched on and off between songs new and old, continuing the concert with a haunting, swirling melody from Hard Light titled Gal. Their ability to control the pace of the concert is a testament to the range of Drop Nineteens’ discography despite only containing a handful of songs. This was also the first feature of keyboardist Paula Kelley’s vocal chops, who added to the lovesick atmosphere of the song. A fan shouted out that it was their Nineteenth birthday and the band dedicated the song Winona to the fan, instead calling the song Raquel. A highlight of the night was the band’s cover of Lana Del Rey’s White Dress, which I have to commend Greg Ackell for keeping the gendered lyrics of the song the same, a huge pet-peeve of mine for other artists that decide they have to change the lyrics to avoid… singing the original song?
Drop Nineteens finished off the night with a short encore, of course playing their most famous song Kick the Tragedy, a bewitching, dreamy chorus of guitars that stretched on for over 10 minutes, of which I am certain the band extended to keep the night alive just a bit longer for their engaged fans that night. The band played a recording of the voice note that plays in the original capture of the song, some of the people in the audience knew all of the words. A song which wasn’t viral, hadn’t been played in concert in decades, was being played in a city completely unrelated to the band’s origins, and a song which quite frankly doesn’t even have lyrics but a conversation, but there were folks who knew all the words. It was a beautiful thing to hear.
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