Brian Slattery Photos
Blvck Hippie.
Josh Shaw of Blvck Hippie was on tour from Memphis, but had nothing but praise for the two New Haven acts — Glambat and Mightymoonchew — who had preceded him on the stage at Cafe Nine on Wednesday night. He declared himself maybe a little intimidated. “Why did both bands have to sing so good?” the headliner said. “I’m a little self-conscious now.” He was paying the same respects to his openers as they’d paid to him, in a night filled with music that was both personal and partylike.
Glambat.
As the room already had a healthy-sized crowd by 9 p.m., the New Haven-based band Glambat — now a duo of Emily Rose Alderman on vocals and guitar and John Romano on drums — started in early. They showed without any banter at all how two people could hold an audience through music alone, making the loud-quiet-loud formula of song structure their own.
Romano’s dynamic drumming kept it pulsing and atmospheric during the music’s calmer moments and got heavy and clashing during cathartic surges in the music. Alderman used her guitar to create everything from warm, shimmering chords to walls of distortion, all while singing acrobatically of stories that swung from heartfelt to sarcastic to vulnerable to pointed. Though Alderman was no stranger to the audience; at the end of her set, she remarked how excited she was to be sharing a bill with Mightymoonchew and Blvck Hippie.
Mightymoonchew.
It was more than enough to set the stage for the New Haven-based trio of Thailend Parker (a.k.a. Moon Cha) on vocals and guitar, Marcus-Aurelius C. Benton on keys, and Chris Chew on drums, who have been on a tear of live shows through New Haven in the past couple months, including at Cafe Nine (“We live here now,” Parker joked at the beginning of their set). Parker mirrored the admiration Alderman had given for her setmates. “If I had an iPod, it would only have these two on it,” they said of Glambat and Blvck Hippie.
Mightymoonchew then proceeded to deliver the freewheeling, high-energy set the trio has quickly become known for, whether performing New Haven favorites like “Upside Down” or heading off into an improvised jam, with Parker unleashing the talent for freestyling they’ve always had since they appeared on the New Haven music scene as a more straight-ahead hip hop artist. The band’s sound was a balance of serenity and chaos, as Benton’s keys laid a calm foundation for Chew’s and Parker’s energetic playing. The result was another set that kept the stage and the dance floor in front of it hot for the headliner.
The Memphis, Tenn.-based Blvck Hippie — Josh Shaw on vocals and guitar, Casey Rittinger on drums, Celest Farmer on guitar, and Tyrell Williams on bass — was more than ready to close out the night with a set of their own originals, interspersed with charming banter from Shaw. “This one is called ‘Art School,’” he said of his opening number. “Anyone ever been to a small art school?”
Someone from the crowd cheered.
“I never have,” Shaw said, and smiled at the ripple of laughter that passed through the crowd. “But this is what I imagine it’s like.” The band then worked through a string of songs that combined sweet sounds and heartfelt emotions with charging rhythms and muscular bass. “If you want to dance, totally do it,” Shaw said after the fourth song. “This is a dance song.” The crowd didn’t need any more invitation than that, and soon were bouncing in front of the stage. In between songs, the band professed its tongue-in-cheek affinity for White Claw (“What’s everyone’s favorite White Claw flavor?” Williams said. “Because that defines you.”) and dropped a reference to the 1998 Disney Channel original movie Halloweentown. He wore his heart on his sleeve in the best sense, announcing that one song was “my mom’s favorite song on the album. It’s also the saddest song on the album” — referring to the band’s latest release, If You Feel Alone At Parties.
The music started to feel anthemic, and the audience rocked back and forth to it. He revealed toward the end of the set that his girlfriend’s mother was in attendance for the show, and got the audience to sing “Happy Birthday” to her, complete with breakout into Stevie Wonder’s version of the song (“That’s why I love having Black people in the audience,” Shaw said). His voice was genuine as he thanked the crowd for coming out on a Wednesday to hear him. “We’ll be around afterward; you can say hey,” he added. “If you don’t like the way I play, you can criticize me to my face.” No one took him up on it.