WEEK OF 11/2/2019

Beach Bunny / all 📷 : Tina Mead

Another Michael set the Halloween tone by walking out to the Goosebumps theme. The audience, regardless of costume (so many bunny ears! including yours truly), was in a party mood and shouted out recognition and appreciation. Another Michael’s music had a chill, body-rocking vibe. Michael Doherty’s vocals were pure and controlled. Even when he sang acoustically, it rang through Thalia Hall so sweetly it made me shiver. “Hanging” started to pick up the pace and put the party on track. His vocal runs and falsetto on “Connect” made it one of the strongest songs of their set. With three people rotating between guitars/bass and keys, there was a variety of tones and layers of sounds in their set. Nick Sebastiano provided some seriously funky basslines and Alenni Davis shredded with intensity. Always the supporter of bands and lover of live music, Lillie Trifillio (aka Beach Bunny) was spotted in the audience, smiling and bopping along with us. When Another Michael ended with “About,” Doherty pointed out that the opening organ sound gave it a kind of spooky Halloween feel, but it was also just a great song to end on, starting with a strong driving patter of lyrics that I couldn’t resist bouncing around to, and ending with a perfect three-part harmony ringing in my ears. 

Prince Daddy and the Hyena kicked the party up a notch with a fuzzy punk energy. Especially when they rolled into “Dialogue” and the audience sang along. There was a decent portion of the sold-out audience there for these guys, and with good reason. They brought a unique sound that also carries on a tradition of punk and emo. The band bounced over a near-hardcore music. Kory Gregory’s vocals were sandpaper rough, slicing through the fuzz. Cameron Handford did a happy waltz with this guitar, then took a wide lunge stance, bending backwards, and grimaced with the exertion of shredding. “I Lost My Life” and its killer guitar interplay between Handford and Gregory had the audience headbanging their bunny ears right off. The song inspired our first crowd surfer of the night, but definitely not the last. They followed it with a slightly more thoughtful song, “Really?” another obvious audience favorite.

All the moshing and jumping and singing along to Prince Daddy meant the audience was well warmed up for Chicago’s darling Prom queen and court, Beach Bunny. This audience was so deeply in love, they could have started with any song from their catalog and gotten an enthusiastic response, so no surprise that the glistening guitar opening of “6 Weeks” was met with cheers. It might be my favorite, so I was beyond happy to sing along as I snapped pics in the photo pit.

Beach Bunny was celebrating the release of a new single the day before “Dream Boy” and had also just announced that their first full-length album, Honeymoon will be released on Valentine’s Day, 2020. So appropriate for these hopeless romantics to give us a reason to be less lonely on a day that holds so much tension for the singles and lovers alike. They played a number of songs off the new album. I was instantly in love with “Rearview” with its classic sound of Trifillio beginning with her playing solo on the guitar. The lyric, “You always seem to be closer in the review” was strong. Then later, the song, “I hate it when you catch me crying,” really cut me to the core. The ending of the song dug deep and turned to a grunge-sound outside their usual, but it felt completely right. (Can’t wait to be able to play that song on repeat!

But it was the songs we have already etched onto our hearts that had people singing with abandon and made this show such a blast. As the band started “Boys,” the audience clapped enthusiastically. It’s hard to resist Beach Bunny’s bouncing and yet also sad music. Trifillio's voice was all edges as she sang the ending refrain of “cry.” She embraced not just the music’s pure expression of pain, but her inner rockstar. She created a party atmosphere by killing it musically, but even more so by being genuinely thrilled to be performing. She was having a ton of fun. Her joy was pure and infectious; it was impossible to not smile while watching her play. When she demanded people “kill each other” in a circle pit for “Sports” and their biggest wall of death yet for their closing song, “Painkiller” the crowd happily obliged. We sang about our heartache. Our suffering helped us find comradery in that crowd. As we moved our bodies, we collided, feeling heartache expressed in that momentary pain. It helped the heaviness fall from our hearts. We found ourselves celebrating love lost and life lived.  

-Tina Mead