Truly there is no experience quite like a boygenius show. The band – a supergroup comprised of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus – is a phenomenon in the truest sense of the word, uniting three artists who are already genre-defining in their own right under one banner, characterized by the truest of friendships and an abundance of queer joy. The response was universally positive when they released their first EP, and the record arrived in early 2023 to colossal anticipation. They have their own pseudo-mythical status, complete with symbolism: each of the three adorned themselves with the same small tattoo of a tooth, an inked representation of their indelible bond and an homage to a lyric from that first EP. The line filing into the venue is full of merch both official and unofficial, including Bridgers-inspired skeleton shirts; pink carnations; and among the most impressive of the custom jobs, a knit sweater bearing a tooth on the front and the phrase “Never A God” on the back – further evidence that the band’s ‘Not Strong Enough’ has cemented itself as one of the most iconic songs they’ve ever produced. Others still opt to emulate the white dress shirt and tie the band sports on some nights, alternating with their patch-adorned bomber jackets.
Before the band appears, the night begins as it does wherever possible with a land acknowledgment, reflecting on the Quinnipiac people and other tribes who once inhabited the land now known as Connecticut. Music begins from backstage, and a video feed of the trio singing ‘Without You Without Them’ from behind the LED screen that will be their backdrop for the remainder of the evening. In its short time span, which also opens the record, it embodies the soul of their music – the drive, central to every interpersonal relationship, romantic or otherwise – to know someone in absolute detail. Parenthood has sometimes played a less-than-flattering role in their music, but here those forebears are offered gratitude: whatever they may or may not have passed on, those characteristics form the people each of “The Boys” know now; and to know someone, their failings, flaws, the things they lack or typically obscure alongside their prominent successes and obvious assets, is an essential component of any and every kind of love.
This show – the sold-out finale of the open-air season at New Haven’s Westville Music Bowl – comes at a charged and excitingly transitional time for boygenius. They’re on the cusp of releasing a new EP, entitled the rest – a collection of b-sides from the record. The Connecticut show finds them midstream in live-debuting songs from it, and one night shy of Baker’s birthday; a syzygy of events in line with the upcoming release, which seems to imply a conclusion of this particular period of the band. They start the night with a wealth of songs from the record, a reminder of how this renewed partnership created a perfect prism of an album – able to amplify one voice when someone distinctly takes lead vocals, but just as easily capable of showing off the talents of all three in simultaneous, kaleidoscopic fashion. Their voices complement each other perfectly, whether in gorgeous harmonies or standout moments such as when Bridgers builds up to an immense scream in set-opener ‘$20’. The songs are chiefly ruminations on friendship, and when they do examine more romantic relationships – like in the tripartite post-mortems of ‘Cool About It’, there’s a kind of implicit solidarity shared between the three as they approach the same type of situation from their individual perspectives.
The first track they play from their debut EP is ‘Souvenir’, which gets phones floating around in the air and leads into ‘Bite the Hand’, from which the tooth symbol is derived. As they have for much of their tour around the record, the band covers every bit of their released material in the set, as well as a three-song tour celebrating a song from each of their individual catalogs. What follows is New Haven’s premiere preview of the rest, which is a song called ‘Voyager’. Bridgers takes the lead here, in a song that conveys a cosmic sense of isolation. It was a song she debuted at one of her own shows in 2022, and it makes as much sense as a corollary to Punisher as it does to the record. It’s relatively restrained instrumentally and even in its vocal harmonies, a reminder, like in ‘Garden Song’ or ‘Revolution 0’, that Bridgers’ quietest moments often convey or recount the darkest feelings. It also reads like a companion piece to her verse in ‘Cool About It’, both in its explicit mention of mind-reading, as well as letting someone labor under a false pretense to avoid conflict.
This final act of the main set is particularly charged with emotion, through ‘Me & My Dog’ and into Dacus’ ‘We’re In Love’. In fairness, that song does let you know you’re in for it from the very first line: “You could absolutely break my heart / that’s how I know that we’re in love.” She walks patiently from one end of the stage to the other and back as she sings, alighting just a bit at each extreme and looking out at the faces in the crowd. She reaches the zenith of the song and its line about a pink carnation, and as if on cue a delicate lob sends a bundle of rosy flowers into the air and she catches it by the stems. The effortless perfection of the moment is almost impossible to describe, like something worthy of a scene in a film happening before one’s eyes, though Dacus doesn’t skip a beat save for a smiling look of wonderment.
Next comes ‘Anti-Curse’, which joins ‘$20’ in prominently inheriting Baker’s distinctly angled guitar playing alongside her lead vocal. Introducing ‘Letter to an Old Poet’, Bridgers asks the audience to put their phones down and presages it with: “If you relate to this song, my apologies”. Much like ‘Voyager’, it describes the pitch-black inner workings of a relationship, and at the beginning of the song Bridgers walks down to the audience and leans over the railing into the crowd, ultimately turning around and leaning back, emblematic of the support she draws from being close to others as she retreads those feelings each night of the tour. Baker and Dacus hang back, perched at different points on the stage, Dacus resting with a leg up on the TV sets that have become part of their set dressing throughout the night. But the song ultimately repudiates its darkness, recalling the most explosive passage of ‘Me & My Dog’ and transmuting it into resolute confidence – a quieter moment, at least on the record; here it’s bolstered by a few thousand voices singing along in unison.
The rest of the night carries that triumphant sense of community forward, into the much-anticipated arrival of ‘Not Strong Enough’ to close the set, and beyond that with the celebration of Baker’s imminent birthday that occurs between ‘Ketchum, ID’ and ‘Salt in the Wound’. The latter of those two often sees the band get up to some good-natured antics at the close of their shows, but a food fight might be unprecedented. They bring out a cake for Baker before the song and by the end it’s in everyone’s fists, Dacus lifting it to Baker’s face while Baker is still playing guitar. It’s total chaos, the crowd reveling in it [I unwittingly almost typed “eating it up”] as invariably Bridgers and Dacus start tossing handfuls into the crowd, sponge and icing dividing in the air. They line up together with their backing band who’ve descended from the risers at the back of the stage, hands covered in cake, wrapped around one another for a collective bow. The lights are all up on stage and everyone is all smiles, and the same is true of the audience, basking in a joyous glow both literal and metaphorical.
Photos and Review by Collin Heroux
