Photos by Lauren Khalfayan, find more of her work here.
For concert goers, Sundays suck most of the time. One of the last Sunday’s I went to Baby’s, the crowd stood 10 feet away from the stage and didn’t move. However, this past Sunday, Miami punks Jacuzzi Boys and their Brooklyn-based openers got the crowd jumping, screaming, and pushing like the most hyped Thursday night shows.
Gnarcissists, a four-piece punk outfit from Brooklyn, started the night off like a lightning fast warm up. While their shredding and controlled shrieking alluded to classic punk of the yesteryears we weren’t around for, their set felt like a purposefully curated appetizer as opposed to a condensed version of a fully formed performance. What boomed from the amps exuded much more energy than the band, who seemed to rush off stage a measure before their final song ended. Still, the air around the audience sizzled as they were clearly hungry for a show and Gnarcissists were a pleasant palate cleanser from the day.
What blasted off next took the entire audience by surprise, even those, like me, who’ve seen the second openers perform before. Barely a year old, The Muckers have gotten the Brooklyn scene talking with only one phenomenal single under their belts. The stage filled with fog, which openers don’t often get at Baby’s, and the four tall, lanky, 70s clad Brooklynites took control of their set as if it were Madison Square Garden.
Point blank: Lead guitarist and frontman, Emir Mohsseni, knows what the fuck he’s doing. He tears up his guitar like the best one night stand you’ve ever had. It’s aggressive and explosive, but still maintains skill, care, and a lot of heart. Their arena-sized psych rock conjured up many references to the jams of the 1970s, but stadiums of that era would have been lucky for such a killer show. Judging by their flailing, it was clear the audience agreed, too, and I’m confident any audience seeing them on their upcoming tour will lose their minds as well.
Seeing punk bands like Jacuzzi Boys continues to take me by surprise. Unless a band has hugely produced jams a la FIDLAR, I expect audiences to just dance reasonably to lo-fi punk rock. For Jacuzzi Boys, I was so incredibly wrong. Right from the first riff, chaos erupted, both on and off stage. Not the intentionally violent kind you’d see at a death metal show, but the kind that leaves bruises on the stomachs of the poor photographers up front getting thrust into the stage.
Appropriately so, the Jacuzzi Boys produced the most energetic and vicious performance of the night, destroying their instruments, thrashing around the stage, and giving the audience exactly what they came for. They fantastically trampled over hits like “Glazin’,” but it didn’t matter off stage. The three-piece outfit could have covered the worst Top 40 pop song and crowd surfers would have still incessantly popped up and over the audience. Whether you’re a fan or not, Jacuzzi Boys are a fiery surprise that will leave you pushing the strangers around you before you know it.
