Brian Slattery Photos
Dr. Martino was halfway through its set at the State House on Thursday night when Simone Puleo and Amy Shaw, who had been playing guitar and bass, respectively, suddenly switched instruments. Shaw then shot a smile toward the crowd.
“Any questions?” she said. “I’m taking questions. No? Good.”
The trio then ripped into another joyously raucous song, celebrating not only the band’s return to the State House stage, but a 10-day tour it was about to embark on with fellow Connecticut rockers Big Fang. There was thus a sense of things coming full circle, as the two bands had toured together before the pandemic, in 2019, but also starting new.
Helping see the two headliners off were two other area bands, Bajzelle and Pond View. Bajzelle — Greg Poore on guitar and vocals, Connor Rog on guitar and vocals, Matt Valade on bass and vocals, and Jeff Wickun on drums and vocals — took the opening slot for the evening with a set of long, complex songs that never lost their punk energy. The twin guitars, one fuzzily melodic, the other prone to experimental noise, created a big sound that bass and vocals held down with weighty rhythm. The sound Bajzelle made set the tone for the evening, even getting a small group of people to start moshing for the first and last songs.
With the room sufficiently warm, Dr. Martino — Simone Puleo on guitar, bass, and vocals, Amy Shaw on bass, guitar, and vocals, and Michael Kaminski on drums — arrived with a set of driving songs and a contagious sense of fun. The trio locked in rhythmically to keep everything rushing along, even as they retained a freewheeling edge that suggested, in the best way, that everything was on the verge of chaos. It is possible that Puleo smiled for the entire time he was on stage, whether he was encouraging people to partner up and slow dance (or, ahem, take things a little further) to an old favorite or bounding across the stage while Shaw ripped a solo on guitar to manipulate her wah-wah pedal and change her sound. In between songs the three bantered like they were best friends. During the last song Kaminski hit his crash cymbal hard enough to knock it out of its stand. All of it was all part of the fun.
Pond View — Luke Kraszewski on vocals and guitar, Corey Farnsworth on guitar, Josh Sansone on bass, and Matt Nagy on drums — then added healthy dollops of slack absurdity to keep the party going. A group of fans in the audience egged them along by feeding them lines to bounce off of, but Kraszewski made it clear he could keep it absurd by himself, whether he was introducing songs (“this song is about not calling back your homies”; “this song’s about a big alligator — no, it’s not”; “my bracelet’s getting stuck to my guitar”) or leading the way through a stumbling, highly entertaining outro.
The four-piece lurched around on stage as though any minute they might fall over. But that couldn’t hide that Sansone and Nagy made for a thick rhythm section for Kraszewski and Farnsworth to do some serious exploration, making each song an agent of unpredictability with always satisfying results.
“This is the last song, I promise,” Kraszewski said toward the end of Pond View’s set. He was lying. The audience didn’t seem to mind.
Pond View’s excursions led the way for Big Fang — Tony Mascolo on guitar and vocals, Grayson Jeffries on guitar and vocals, Chris Otero on bass, and Jacob Doherty on drums — to finish up the evening. Big Fang was light on the banter, letting the music do the talking. There was plenty to say, as the twin guitars created lush, gritty harmonies over a rock-solid bass and drums; Doherty in particular sometimes stole the show with extremely quick snare and hi-hat work that drove songs with even more inventive energy. Mascolo’s powerful voice could cut through it all to deliver his songs’ emotional and honest messages. At times he didn’t even need a microphone.
Toward the end of Big Fang’s set, Mascolo circled back to a song he had written, he said, at the very beginning of the pandemic. That song, “Don’t Let Me Drown,” came out a rocker on the first volume of Waiting on a Sunrise, the first release from Alexandra Burnet’s Free as Birds record label. But the hands of the live band, the song had even more energy. As Jefferies’s guitar climbed into the stratosphere, Mascolo stepped away from the mic and howled in reply. They turned the song into a real cry of freedom, just before they hit the road.