With the release of their album “Cody” via Epitaph Records, California punk quartet Joyce Manor brought their tour with The Hotelier and Crying to its midway point at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg.
Opening the show were local favorites Crying who also dropped a new release, their debut LP “Beyond the Fleeting Gales.”
With a strong chip tune punk sound on their earlier EPs “Get Olde” and “Second Wind” which would later be compiled into one record, the band all but abandoned the eight bit patches in favor for more 70s/80s prog synths with hints of Yes, Rush and even Genesis.
In live performances, their sound is as tight as ever with Ryan Galloway’s technical guitar prowess, vocalist Eliza Santos’ emotionally dense lyrical style, and while official drummer Nick Corbo is on tour with LVL UP, TJ of Nine of Swords filled in bringing a different sensibility to Corbo’s more concise rhythms. On their new track “There Was a Door,” Laetitia Tamko aka Vagabon joined Santos on vocals for her verse.
The Hotelier just wrapped up a massive headlining tour of their own in support of “Goodness” which featured Epoch bands Told Slant and Bellows alongside Loone. Within seconds of the opening notes of “An Introduction to the Album” rang through Christian Holden’s resilient vocal cords, the band launched into a set comprised of material from their latest LP and crowd favorites from “Home, Like No Place Is There” and older records.
Despite their unassuming demeanor on stage, setting up instruments and checking microphones, the band thrust into “Heart Tattoo” off of their 2014 release “Never Hungover Again” which saw the crowd at the sold out venue surge forward like a massive wave of bodies.
With a career spanning four LPs and a slew of singles, the band cherry picked tracks off of each record, even hearkening back to their old material when the band mentioned their first NYC gig at the now-closed Party Expo back in 2007.
With a 16+ show, the crowd was mostly teens, more likely due to the nature of the band’s lyricism speaking to a distinctly adolescent moodiness.
With this in mind, vocalist/guitarist Barry Johnson has always been weary of the safety of his fans even going as far to shame crowd surfers on stage before, but in NYC, Johnson went as far as kicking a guy off the stage who went to dive into a sea of hormonal rage.
The band even stopped their set halfway through when some deplorable threw a folding chair off of the balcony and into the crowd.
While the person in question was escorted out by security, the venue manager intervened at one point, and Johnson criticized the inconsiderate attendee as some “drunk 32 year old going to a punk show with a bunch of teens.”
