by connormurphy
As many of the sweater-toting, iced-latte drinking readers of the water tower may be aware, boygenius was just in Boston for their closest show to Burlington. As this was the closest stop of their tour, many UVM students partook in a bisexual pilgrimage in order to see the trio perform. Some of these travelers were even rewarded with a surprise appearance of Hozier on stage during the Monday night concert, which led to multiple patrons being evacuated due to falling unconscious from shock at the sight of the Irish giant singing with the group.
If you asked me at which night I was in attendance, I would say it was neither as I maintained a strong focus on my studies and chose not to forgo any of my classes for a simple concert. That’s what I’m telling myself at least. I’m sure that for all of you car owners or veteran bus navigators, it was a quick decision to buy tickets at the last minute when they plummeted to $75 for GA floor seats, but even given the chance to secure tickets, I would be left stranded in Simpson Hall.
Despite all these obstacles, after seeing a collection of Facetime photos, Instagram posts, and multiple angles of TikToks, I feel confident I am able to conduct a quality and unbiased review of the recent performance. I would assume that the supergroup, comprised of Phoebe Bridgers, Julian Baker, and Lucy Dacus, performed many songs from their debut album “the record” and their earlier, self-titled EP. What struck me as an outstanding piece was their song “True Blue” which I was able to enjoy through a shaky, blurry, somewhat hard-to-hear Facetime call. In the 30 seconds to a minute I had before the MGM Music Hall wifi ultimately ended the call, the song was delivered powerfully, with the trio, whose legs were all I could see of them, alternating back and forth who was singing the lyrics so you heard every combination of voices from the band. Sometime after losing contact with my operatives in the field, I received a text that simply read; “HOXIER” which I deduced likely meant Hozier, but there was little I could make of that until the next morning when I saw that Hozier had in fact joined boygenius on stage to play “Salt in the Wound” from their EP. One could argue that Hozier himself was meant to serve as the salt in the wound for all those who had now, passed on seeing both boygenius and him live. After viewing many videos uploaded to Twitter and YouTube, it was clear that the audience at MGM Music Hall was ecstatic about the surprise. So much so that it is nearly impossible to hear any of the song after the moment Hozier walked on stage. It was just as good though, to watch him hug Phoebe Bridgers to the sound of 5,000 people cheering during my 8:30 a.m. Intro to Poetry class. There was some good news for those at home. The supergroup used this night to announce their release of a new EP on Friday, October 13, which will not require any bus fairs or missed classes to listen to.
After a successful two nights in Boston, boygenius is likely to never come back to the East Coast until the day after I die as that is my luck when it comes to seeing live shows. Until then I will hold out hope that they are planning to announce a surprise show at Higher Ground any day now.