Review: boygenius at Harrah's Cherokee Center — Asheville

There was a point late in the June 13 performance from boygenius — the cross-pollination project by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus — when it felt like the Harrah’s Cherokee Center - Asheville could achieve lift-off from the sheer energy of the assembled crowd.

Check that — there were several moments like that during the band’s 90-minute show. But there was this one point, as the band moved through “Not Strong Enough” (which culminates in the rhythmic repeating refrain “Always an angel never a god”) where the lid fully came off and the whole place just detonated into unbridled cathartic energy. 

In front of me, there was a sea of flailing hands, bodies bouncing, and ecstatic, hair-flinging joy. Behind me, in the balcony seats lit by the glow of stage lights turned on the audience, there were tears, people dancing, and others frozen in place, hands folded over hearts, and the kind of open-mouth smiles you see on people who are being transformed. The floor trembled, the music rushed out in tectonic waves, and the dazzle of lighting and illuminated phones scrambled in the air like television static made of fireflies. If we had all been suddenly lifted into the air and spirited away, it would not have seemed so out of place.

boygenius makes music borne of angst, pain, power, and renewal — the kind that soaks into the psyche and becomes anthems of soul-bending yearning and heart-rending wreckage that’s near universal even when we wish it wasn’t. It’s also exquisite, full of smashing crescendos and lonely ballads — the sort of songs you’d put on a soundtrack at the defining moment the protagonist decides to break free and flee from a broken relationship, a toxic household, a prison of mediocrity. The kind of music you sing in the car louder than you would when people can hear, or that welds tight the seam of a forever friendship as you shout that one angsty “fuck you” line together. And that’s the energy the crowd brought to this performance, dropping every reservation and pretension and letting everything all out, all at once. From start to finish, it was a great big raging love fest — and who doesn’t deserve that?

I can’t imagine being the warm-up act for such a singular event, especially with the anticipation so clearly on display from the throngs of boygenius fans, but Bartees Strange was up to the task. The English-born, Washington D.C.-based singer/songwriter came out fully committed, starting out solo on an electric guitar on “Fallen for You” from his 2020 debut, Live Forever. But he was soon joined by his band on “Far” to reach the range of elevation he’s capable of. 

While songs like “Mustang” filled every pocket of air with synths, drums, and Strange’s furious strumming guitar , the frontman danced, paced, shook, and gave everything he had. Setting aside the guitar, he picked up the mic and worked the front of the stage, sometimes crooning, sometimes wailing, as the band built its way to the up-tempo dance beats on “Wretched” and “Cosigns” — the latter of which journeyed into near-industrial territory. Strange is a true showman and a musical innovator, combining rock, jazz, hip-hop, and soul not by shifting back and forth between the styles, but by layering and melding them together into his own form that should place him among today’s top pop acts.

The downside was that the sound at Harrah’s was not up to the task of making Strange’s words come across clearly — a shame because he’s also a masterful lyricist who deserves to be heard, exploring important themes of self-doubt and his place in the world. The upside was that the crowd didn’t seem to care and met Strange’s energy with well-earned zeal.

During the break, fans were on high alert, seemingly ready to crack at the slightest movement on stage — they even howled for stagehands uncovering tall risers. Then when members of the Deer Clan of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians came to the stage to present a land acknowledgement and issue a warning about attacks to the Indigenous Child Welfare Act, the noise from the crowd was as full as it had been for Strange. (NOTE: In the time since the concert, the ICWA has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.)

But when a video feed of boygenius singing the a cappella “Without You Without Them” that opens their 2023 album, the record, appeared in the giant screen, it may have been the quietest crowd I’ve ever heard in Asheville.

That would, however, be the last time there would be silence.

Once Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus took the stage in person, an airliner-decibel scream went up as the band kicked into their song “$20,” followed by “Satanist,” and from that point forward, the entire evening was pure roller coaster momentum.

I’m cautious of the term “supergroup.” When brilliant musicians drift so close to each other’s orbit that they merge, too often the result is an underdeveloped sound that, at the same time, buffs off the edges that make each musician’s impact distinct. That’s not true of boygenius. Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus all make wonderful music on their own, but the chemical reaction that happens when these three get together is explosive — and even more so live. And listening to both the record and their 2018 self-titled EP ahead of the performance didn’t adequately prepare me for the power they brought to the stage.

Where the studio versions of songs like “Bite the Hand” rein the crunching guitar chords into the backing mix, in person it burst forth, ferocious and unrestrained. The women matched that power with their vocals, which floated, soared or, like in the ceiling-lifting peak of “Salt in the Wound,” created harmonic overtones that washed over the arena.

Each performer showed their individual capabilities as well — the wounded, throaty intimacy from Bridgers, the powerhouse fire of Baker, and the strong but warm contralto of Dacus all stood out, even as they intertwined on songs like “Cool About It” and “Emily I’m Sorry.”

There is fierce depth and honesty in the places boygenius writes from — they often sing the things we wish we had said, or wish we could say, but they wield those themes with a revelatory sense of power. The songs are less about love on the rocks than they are about love being smashed to bits against those rocks and dragged back out to sea, while our authors stand on the beach, middle finger held high in the air.

And several times, on songs like the Dacus-led “True Blue,” some in the crowd met the lines “You don’t know who you are/you fuck around and find out,” with middle fingers of their own.  When Bridgers let fly the words “I want to be emaciated,” from the “Me and My Dog,” a song she wrote about the turmoil of her much-publicized relationship with musician Ryan Adams, she did it with all the anger, anguish, and victory it deserves. And on “Anti-Curse,” Baker unleashed a full arena rock howl on the line “I’m swimming back,” her ferocity broadcasting across the room and on the big screen behind her.

Moments like these sent waves of elation through the crowd, and when the camera was trained on the audience, putting their faces on the big screen during “Bite the Hand,” it was clear how much they were part of the show.

Even when the band settled into softer, more intimate songs, and the crowd shifted from bouncing to swaying in unison, the emotional weight did not let up — after all, “soft” does not always mean “gentle,” and it certainly doesn’t mean “understated.” As Bridgers sang on “Letter to an Old Poet” — “You say my music is mellow/Maybe I’m just exhausted,” before working up to the blistering lines “You’re not special/You’re evil/You don’t get to tell me to calm down.”

Later, Bridgers sat strumming an acoustic guitar and Baker played piano while Dacus sang, “I feel crazy in ways I never say/Would you still love me if it turns out I am insane” on “We’re In Love,” an ode to haunting uncertainty that, with only a slight nudge and some pedal steel, could easily metamorphosize from indie rock territory into the land of country ballads. Dacus even said as much during the show: “This is like a hardcore…like a punk show but for country music,” she said laughing, a take supported by the tension and release on “True Blue”; on “Salt in the Wound,” with its driving crashes (as Baker’s belts the line “If this is a prison I’m willing to  buy my own chains”); and then again on set closer “Ketchum, ID.”

Following an encore of songs from their individual catalogs (Dacus’ “Please Stay,” Baker’s “Favor,” and Bridgers’ “Graceland Too”), the trio collapsed into hugs onstage and the crowd erupted into screams one last time. A spell had been cast, or a spell had been broken, but whichever it was seemed to have worked. boygenius is not content to just open the door for emotional release — they grab you by the hand and pull you through.

I say “catharsis” a lot in these reviews. It’s one of my favorite things in rock music. It’s what punk does. It’s why metal feels good. A show like the one boygenius brought to Harrah’s Cherokee Center - Asheville is more than a transaction between a ticket buyer and a talent — it’s a shared experience, and it may be one this band replicates at each stop on their tour. But that doesn’t make the whole thing any less authentic.

When the lights came up and I saw the faces around me filled with spent expressions of joy, it did feel strange to look around and think, “Oh wow: we’re still here.” 7,500 people had been lifted, but they came back to earth. Instead of some heavenly ascension, they were left to stream out onto the sidewalks, grinning and babbling about what they just saw and heard and felt. 

boygenius doesn’t need the rapture — they’ll make their own.

(Photos from 6/20/23 Pittsburgh show by Jason Nelson)