An Ode to Intimacy
A look at one of Boston’s most historic music venues, today.
Boston’s historic Paradise Rock Club welcomes visitors with a warm, intimate buzz emanating from a small crowd of 933 — or even fewer, depending on the evening. Dim lighting in the audience gives way to vivid images of performers under personalized light shows from what feels like just feet away at any given point at the venue. The stage is simple, sizable. Bars are stationed at accessible corners and along the back downstairs wall, and most patrons favor bargain classics like Rolling Rock, Pabst Blue Ribbon, or good old Bud Light.
The first night I visited — October 3 — it was to see the Canadian indie pop group Alvvays (pronounced “always,” as I discovered the night of the show). I didn’t know the group well, but my partner bought us tickets after “Discover”-ing the band on Spotify and recognizing the ethereal sear of female vocals — almost pixie-like in pitch if not for their power — and the smooth overlapping waves of synthpop that we both particularly enjoy. I worried that Alvvays would fall prey to the common plague of indie pop artists, drowning the lofty voices of lead vocalist Molly Rankin and keyboardist-slash-backup vocalist Kerri MacLellan — a sweet duo of best friends — in heavy electronic overlap. While this rings somewhat true in their recorded work, on stage the musicians achieved a pleasant harmony, the transcendent choruses of Rankin and MacLellan on appropriate display throughout the set.
My partner and I observed from the club’s first floor, settled in a far corner by the merchandise display. Regardless, we had no trouble getting swept up by the blissful energy of the performers onstage — except for a couple of classic “tall dudes” with an equally classic lack of spatial awareness. Be sensitive toward the regular-sized people, eh?
“I don’t know about the rest of the days, but today’s pretty good,” Rankin said as she introduced Alvvays, whose performance that night marked the opening of its current United States tour to promote Antisocialites (2017). Coming on the heels of Monday’s tragic shooting in Las Vegas, the words were well received.
A personal standout was the group’s ballad “Dreams Tonite,” featuring the bold, crisp croon of Rankin as she gets “a little romantic,” lamenting a passionate but fraught relationship in melancholy, airy refrains of the main chorus: “If I saw you on the street, would I have you in my dreams tonight… tonight?” It’s a simple track, but mesmerizing in its resonance and captivating quality on a live platform. Another was an equally romantic if more upbeat anthem, “Archie, Marry Me,” to which the crowd joyfully sang along as Rankin pleaded with “Archie” to accept her devotion and immortalize their love, free of worry. Notable lines include: “You’ve expressed explicitly your contempt for matrimony / you’ve student loans to pay and will not risk the alimony.”
Another laudable moment of the concert — this one between songs, as Rankin addressed the crowd directly — came when the tiny platinum blonde congratulated Boston on the trade of Kyrie Irving to the Celtics (that’s National Basketball Association talk, for those not brainwashed by their significant others). Cheers were scattered, though — even if one prominent shout did come from my immediate left — as this was not Boston’s characteristic sports-fanatical crowd. I’ll put it this way: the number of oversized denim jackets I spotted almost seemed to outnumber the attendees, somehow.
Since we arrived about 30 minutes before Alvvays took the stage, we also got to catch part of a set by Beeef (yes, that’s three e’s), a local act in keeping with Paradise’s tradition of showcasing area talent as well as traveling artists. Beeef — of Allston, a city west of both Boston and Cambridge — offered a standard variety of surf rock-pop tunes, the sort guaranteed to invite widespread bobbling among crowd members like myself who are simply unable to remain still when music is playing. I was reminded of my years in college as a groupie for a friend’s garage band, which graced countless backyards and local venues in sunny Santa Barbara.
Paradise Rock Club turned 40 this year, a fact that its classic marquee and trodden interior make no effort to hide. The venue embraces, rather than shirks from, its legacy as a classic spot for the age-old standing-and-listening variety of concert, and for good reason. Since September 1977, the “rock-and-roll club” has featured the likes of Billy Joel, AC/DC, U2, Blondie, The Police, R.E.M, and the late, great Tom Petty, as told by the theater’s only wall decor — concert posters lining the entirety of its entry hallway.
The following Saturday — October 7 — I returned to Paradise with a friend whom I hadn’t seen in months, and because she recently turned 30, I was of course kind enough to cover her ticket processing fees. We went to see Chicano Batman, an “alterlatino” group from California whose funky, psychedelic sound underlies a mix of Spanish and English lyrics that largely speak to resilience and empowerment. The group’s most recent release, Freedom Is Free (2017), sticks mostly to English, preaching mantras like: “You got your guns up on display / but you can’t control how I feel no way / ’cause freedom is free.”
This time, my companion and I ventured upstairs to Paradise’s wraparound balcony, even snagging a coveted spot up against the railing, immediately adjacent to the “reserved” section. Who you must be to attain entry to said exclusive section remains unclear to me. The quartet entranced us with jams like “Jealousy” — a simple but impassioned lament of insecurities in the “lover’s game” — and older Spanish favorites like “Itotiani,” about a dancer’s enticing performance for the singer. The latter is full of sensual language: “Su cuerpo va dando vuelta al ritmo del tambor / su alma va comunicando amor,” or, in English, “Her body is turning to the rhythm of the drum / her soul is communicating love.” Bardo Martinez, Chicano’s frontman, interacted almost constantly with both the audience and his fellow band members.
Having walked into this concert — like the last one — with no prior knowledge of the opener(s), I was pleasantly surprised to discover Texas’s Khruangbin, another psychedelic funk act that tends to be light on lyrics and heavy on bass and bangs. Indeed, the thick, sharply cut hairstyle seems to be a staple of both bassist Laura Lee and guitarist Mark Speer. The trio maintained a calm, collected affect throughout the set, making up for its tempered demeanor with danceable music that enveloped the crowd and filled the small venue to its furthest corners.
Since moving to Boston, I’ve seen Kanye West at the TD Garden and Glass Animals at Blue Hills Bank Pavilion. Over both of those shows, I favored Run the Jewels at Boston’s House of Blues and The Naked and Famous at the Royale Nightclub, both more intimate venues for viewing. You can probably guess the reason by now: I find intimacy invaluable to a truly breathtaking performance. Wherever you might be in the world, find and support your local entertainment hubs; they are a force of community good and musical mobility for the great up-and-comers of our time.
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