It’s been a long, long time since I had to stand in line to get into a venue a half-hour after the doors opened, but I guess that is what happens when a show sells out weeks early and the crowd is an odd mix of Youngs and Olds.
Widowspeak opened and they were fantastic. I missed them when they came through town last year (thanks, covid). They’re a great live band and I’m looking forward to seeing them again. It was neat, because they’re definitely a guitar band, and the lead player was ripping sick riffs, but they weren’t blowing out the room. It was dialed in so you could appreciate the shredding and the chill vibe of their music. 5 stars.
Duster has been riding their Numero-fueled resurgence hard the last couple of years. The success of the reissue campaign has led to a couple of really good new albums and some touring. It’s still wild to me that a band like this, definitively cool, is playing a club date in Richmond, Va. They were also great. I’m not as familiar with their whole catalog, but it was easy to enjoy. The overall set was louder than Widowspeak, but the chill groove of the songs was still easy to get into. Also surprising was the number of under-21 kids that came out. I don’t think Duster is featured in any weird social media phenomena, it might really just be the kids discovering a band that came and went before they were born. You love to see it.
I’ll also include a picture of Widowspeak featuring the goddamn Broadberry pole that is right in front of the stage(!) and a wider shot of Duster featuring the most phones I’ve ever seen at a club show. It was wild.
