By Alejandro Serrano, deputy news editor
Laced in with lightly distorted guitar chords, bass lines played in an echoed round with synthesizers at afterHOURS last Thursday night.
“You can loosen up,” Aaron Maine, lead singer of Porches, said to a full audience as the band began their opening number “Glow.” “It’s a bit cold (outside) but it is warm in here.”
Green Line Records, a nonprofit, student-run record label, organized the concert on Feb. 11, presenting Porches with New York punk glo-fi band eskimeaux and Green Line’s own Boston artist Victoria Rose performing under stage name Brittle Brian.
“Porches are sick; I’ve been trying to book them for a while,” Carly Goldberg, senior communications major and event coordinator, said. “They are a different type of genre than Green Line has been doing lately, being that they are electric pop-like. I’m not only excited to see them but also that I booked them.”
The show was one of Porches’ first since the release of the band’s newest album “Pool” on Feb. 5. Their set list consisted of new material off “Pool” as well as older songs like the intimate “Headsgiving,” off the band’s 2013 album “Slow Dance in the Cosmos.”
“I thought it was a really good turnout even from non-Northeastern students, which means word got out,” said junior Northeastern health science major Allie Hlaing. “I love Pool. I like that it is sad music that I can dance to.”
After “Headsgiving,” Maine changed the tuning of his guitar and said “Ok, let’s do…,” finishing the sentence in a whisper to the band. “We’ll do that one and then…,” he said before another whisper that made the audience laugh. The band launched into the buzzing bass of the synth-driven “Skinny Trees.”
Soon after, the band took a detour from the original 11-song set list and played “Franklin the Flirt,” with drums more prevalent than in the studio recording but with the same sincerity from Maine. Porches closed the evening by asking the audience if they wanted to hear “After Glow” or “Shaver,” and after some feedback, the band ended on the former.
“The show was great, and the sound was awesome. This was my first time at Northeastern afterHOURS…it was really nice,” said Gabrielle Smith, lead singer of eskimeaux and the singer-songwriter behind the moniker. “Porches is my favorite band.”
eskimeaux gave a sample of their music catalog with a 10-song set about 45 minutes before Porches took the stage. The band opened with melodious “Thanks” off their 2015 release “O.K.”
They closed their set in a similar tone with “I Admit I’m Scared.” Smith began singing “I admit I’m scared of a warm side of our bed” and playing guitar while the rest of the band trickled in as the song grew.
The instrumentals faded out as Smith sang the last words and let the last few guitar chords ring out.
“I just found out about Porches and I love eskimeaux,” junior Northeastern pharmacy program student Cassidy Duncan said. “We seem to get bands at afterHOURS right before they are famous. Pitchfork named “Pool” best new music…the lyrics to this music are very somber, but the music is danceable.”
Green Line’s Brittle Brian was first on the bill for the night. According to Goldberg, Green Line Records is trying to incorporate their own artists in shows that they present.
Brittle Brian played four “and a half” songs. The “half song” was one she said she wanted to try out with crowd interaction, asking the audience to sing “ah”’s with her. Brittle Brian ended her performance with “Lizard Eyes,” adapted to her solo performance with guitar from the lo-fi synth-organ song.
“I think what [Green Line Records] is doing – bringing local artists to play with bigger acts – is very cool… making other people and my own dreams come true with sick lineups,” Goldberg said.
Photo by Suma Hussein
