The California sister trio transformed a hazy September night at Suffolk Downs into an intimate yet electric family jam beneath glowing planes and drifting rain to promote their latest studio album, I quit.
The early evening drizzle didn’t dampen the buzz circling Suffolk Downs, where the I quit tour supporting HAIM’s freshly released album landed with swagger and sparkle. The Stage at Suffolk Downs, reimagined as a makeshift amphitheater, felt poised between the city’s racing past and music’s untethered future. Before the trio took the stage, LA’s Dora Jar floated in, casting a dream-pop haze that both contrasted and complemented HAIM’s high-voltage warmth. Her set was brief but intimate, and her voice echoed the lyrics “you’re not alone” in soft lilts that made even the rowdiest fans lean in. She planted the emotional groundwork — vulnerable and earnest — for what was to come: the muscular, hymn-like power of HAIM’s harmonies.
Opening with the locomotive drive of “Now I’m In It,” HAIM’s set immediately kicked into gear — percussive blasts of bass drum colliding with airy claps and cool, clipped electric guitar riffs that fueled soaring choruses as the sisters sang out the title refrain. The verses tightened into restless pulses before erupting into tidal choruses. On the record, the song has a pristine pop polish, but live it thrummed with raw urgency and anxious electricity that whipped the audience into a frenzy and centered them in the glow of HAIM’s best-reviewed record, Women in Music Pt. III.
The set braided fresh tracks like “Relationships,” “Everybody’s Trying to Figure Me Out,” “Down to Be Wrong,” and “All Over Me” between fan favorites like ”Gasoline ft. Taylor Swift,” “The Steps,” and “Summer Girl” — a curated weave of catharsis and celebration. The sisters traded instruments, jokes, and digs throughout the show that enlightened the audience to their musical family dynamic and lifetime of stage and screen talent.
Before global stages, sisters Danielle, Este, and Alana Haim grew up in Rockinhaim — their family band with parents on drums and vocals — playing fairs and charity gigs across Los Angeles. Danielle honed her craft on the road with Jenny Lewis and Julian Casablancas, Este immersed herself in ethnomusicology at UCLA, and Alana found her footing as the youngest sister still in high school. Years of instinctive practice made them fluent in swapping instruments mid-song, locking harmonies without eye contact, and infusing the night with the ease of a living room jam session scaled to thousands. Watching them trade smiles under the lights felt less like a performance than a continuation of a family conversation — just amplified, and shared with Boston.
Every great show has one transcendent moment, when the song, artist, audience, and setting fuse into an unrepeatable moment — an energy exchange that feels like magic and leaves you changed forever. Best of all, you get to carry home a new feeling that returns every time you replay that song. That moment came when HAIM unfurled “Hallelujah.” Stripped to acoustic guitar and hushed harmonies, “Hallelujah” revealed HAIM at their most vulnerable. Explaining its heart with the simple line, “your sibling is your Hallelujah,” they transformed the track into more than music — it became a family prayer. With echoes of Fleetwood Mac shimmering in their harmonies and a soft September breeze brushing the crowd, the song lifted into something spiritual,even for the non-religious. Looking skyward, where stars hid behind haze, a line of seven planes queued for landing, their lights twinkling in slow procession, as if the night itself had staged a celestial encore. The night felt like summer’s last golden hour — warm enough to dance, cool enough to linger. The I quit tour carried the HAIM sisters into town as torchbearers of pop-rock, wielding a sound that gleams with radio-ready sheen yet still scuffed with indie grit and warm traditional folk harmonies. Under open skies, beats knocked so hard they echoed across the Downs, and harmonies lifted so bright they felt kindred to the skyline, and for one shimmering night, Boston became part of the Haim family too.