The lead singer of Coral Moons put it best: “Last year we got rained out at this festival, but this year the sun is fucking shining.” Boston Calling day two was high energy, high heat, and filled with bands equally as enthusiastic as the audience.
A non-stop river of fans flowed through Harvard Stadium on Saturday, May 27 for the second day of the 2023 Boston Calling Festival. The Twisted Tea was flowing, and fans showed no sophomore slump following day one as far as energy and hype were concerned. The four stages covered a wide range of genres from the intimate yet grungy main stage appearance of Joy Oladokun, to the psychedelic and funk infused set from Mt. Joy, to the art-rock extravaganza of The Flaming Lips. But leading up to these headliners were some standout appearances on the smaller stages.
SATURDAY
Afternoon headbangers: Welshly Arms
On the Blue Stage, Welshly Arms rocked a headbanging afternoon crowd. With the sun beating down on the audience, the band increased the temperature even more with heavy breakdowns, behind-the-back guitar solos, and a surprise cover of Rage Against The Machine’s “Bulls on Parade” which got the crowd positively electrified. The backing vocalists stole the spotlight, receiving much love from the audience for their excellent stage presence and tasty harmonies.
Love For Local: Coral Moons
Coral Moons performed on the Tivoli Orange Stage to a close-knit crowd who knew every lyric. Arguably the synth-iest band of the whole day, the Boston-based band created a warm atmosphere that permeated the whole stage. They had a bedroom-pop aesthetic, with heartfelt and expressive lyrics, that nonetheless rocked hard. The bass player, a gentle giant on the stage, kept things grooving, ornamented with smooth licks appreciated by all. The band connected wholesomely with the fans, who were clearly close followers, and the atmosphere in the air was one of love and warmth, which the band nailed down through standout songs such as “Shrooms.”
Pure Joy: Joy Oladokun
Back at the main stage, an enormous crowd swayed to Joy Oladokun’s gentle, funny, and deeply personal music. A singer, guitarist, and songwriter, Oladokun’s sound was tender and folky, with lyric-focused songs demonstrating vulnerability and honesty, mixing fingerstyle guitar with chord-heavy numbers. The enormous crowd was hooked on the storytelling quality of the songs, which told of introversion and personal struggles about losing old religions and finding new ones. While having an endearing, humble stage presence, Oladokun’s music also had a grungy edge, exemplified by the song “We’re All Gonna Die.” “I wrote this song about death while listening to Weezer in my attic,” Oladokun described it. Other songs mixed humor with sentimentality, such as tunes like “The Hard Way,” which opens with, “Jesus raised me, good weed saved me,” which got the crowd laughing and swaying.
Even More Joy: Mt. Joy
Shortly after on the Happy Valley Red Stage, Mt. Joy were busy constructing instrumental grooves with layered and textural soundscapes leading into recognizable tunes like “Dirty Love.” Keyboard player Jackie Miclau contributed to the instrumental wizardry with long tasteful solos that built up spectacularly. The songs connected to one another organically, often not pausing for applause. When their funky and mellow song “Julia” naturally evolved into a cover of Bill Withers “Ain’t No Sunshine,” the crowd went wild. Behind the band, hypnotic, psychedelic projections complemented the unfolding music, which was equally expansive and colorful. The band, who lead singer Matt Quinn explained has a deep history with the city of Boston, rounded out their set with their anthem “Silver Lining” which had the crowd sentimentally singing along.
Right after, back on the Main Stage, Noah Kahan intoxicated the crowd with his undeniably beautiful, almost falsetto voice, performing many of his fan favorite hits with a dynamic band, contrasting his moving folk style with between-song banter with the audience.
Golden Hour Grooves: Najee Janey
If you managed to push your way upstream against the enormous flowing crowd on their way to get an early good spot for Alanis Morissette, you would have arrived at Najee Janey at the Tivoli Orange stage performing to a handful of people. A literal hidden gem, the songwriter/rapper and his tight band was one of the highlights of the whole day, and injected a new burst of life into the waning energy of the early evening. Funky, impeccable flow, and layered with guitars, synths, and backing vocals the group gave the most danceable set of the whole day. Around the crowd, which started as roughly two dozen people, you had people young and old dancing. Najee Janey’s unbroken flow of lyrics, deep and personal, were backed by transfixing backing vocals, screaming guitar solos, and Latin rhythms that were life-giving and groovy. From Roxbury, Janey represented local strength, with audiences knowing his lyrics deeply and singing along. As the set developed, festival-goers passing by drifted in, drawn in by the infectious grooves. By the end of the set the Tivoli Orange Stage was packed with an audience moving to the J-Dilla-type grooves and Mos Def-style flow, warmed by the music and the golden hour sun. Next door, FLETCHER charged up the early evening with unapologetic pop-punk energy and belted lyrics.
The final headliners of the evening had arrived. After a long video intro of her musical history that mounted the hype in the audience, Alanis Morissette burst onto the Red Stage, harmonica wailing. The band of seasoned rockers delivered Morissette’s classic and recognizable tunes in fresh and original ways.
An Out-Of-This-World Party, Literally: The Flaming Lips
A different kind of crowd gathered at the Blue Stage, where The Flaming Lips performed a 20th Anniversary celebration concert of their visionary thematic album “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots” replete with twenty foot tall inflatable pink robots, a seemingly never-ending cascade of confetti, and lead singer Wayne Coyne conducting the audience from inside a giant inflatable ball. The projected visuals, onstage sculptures, and pyrotechnics of the performance matched the imaginative and mind-bending spirit of the album they were celebrating. A standout performance that may come as a surprise program in a festival of younger bands, The Flaming Lips have sealed their legendary status across generations, as proved by the age makeup of the crowd. The audience were transported to the band’s grand imaginary world. Wayne delivered the profound lyrics, revolving around love, death, sadness, and interstellar travel, as the words were projected behind him. The performance was immersive, otherworldly, but fun, and once it was over, you felt like you had just touched back down to Earth after visiting another galaxy, but with everything around you now a pale shade of pink. Their popular song “Do You Realize” brought many audience members to tears, and everyone was hugging each other. The sound was as massive as the pink robots guests on the stage, both with the spirit of rock and with an introspective musing quality from the electronic textures, hypnotic drumming, and washes of guitar. Other standouts were “She Don’t Use Jelly” and “Ego Tripping at The Gates of Hell,” which demonstrated the band’s sound as one that can go from angular riffed rock tunes, to esoteric lyric-driven soundscapes.
Wrapping up the night, on the Main Stage, The Lumineers had the entire audience screaming their lyrics to their hits, and straddled rock and folk in a way that kept the lyrics centered, but the music high-energy. The band had a string section which added to the weight of the music, ending the night on a cinematic and sentimental note.
