Friday night in downtown Boston, directly underneath the sign marking the entrance to TD Garden, hundreds of fans lined up to scan their tickets to see Spafford play a two-set show, their first in the city since the pre-pandemic era and their debut at the relatively new venue called Big Night Live.
Guitarist Brian Moss engaged the crowd with a hearty, “Boston, it is good to see you. It’s been a little while; we missed you,” as the band donned their instruments. The first slow strums of the band’s reimagining of “Take Your Mama” by Scissor Sisters, no stranger to the show opener slot, elicited spirited howls from the crowd and the room’s energy soared to cruising altitude by the time Moss began belting out the song’s punchy chorus.
The microphone was relinquished to keyboardist Andrew “Red” Johnson for the prompt initiation of “People”, which saw the night’s first build of commanding guitar melodies as the band pushed up to a powerful magnitude before falling perfectly into the chorus reprise to cap off the song.
Related: Spafford Announces Spring ‘Sunny Dispositions Tour’
“Plans” was the third song in the set, and it opened the door to the jam room for the night after yet another ensnaring flurry of guitar licks brought the energy to a head in the fast mambo beat. There was no mistaking that the slow funk pocket of the jam, styled with dashes of bass string pops and flashes of flanged guitar licks, was going to be strongly patient, and the crowd was more than happy to marinate in the danceable groove. Control was seized once again by Moss as he gradually inched overdrive into his tone and took the melodic helm. Drummer Nick Tkachyk and bassist Jordan Fairless stayed in lockstep to build the rhythm section energy behind Moss’s intensifying solo, which mounted to a deluge of notes and resolved to the main riff of the song to the bellows of the supportive audience.
A quick run through the ballad “Diana” brought the audience face-to-face with the meat of the set—a one-two punch of Spafford classics, “Lonely” > “Virtual Bean Dip”. The middle stretch of “Lonely” is a soft, wide-open jam that gets some legs when it ramps into an upbeat foot-stomper and a theme riff emerges. The theme rides into the final elevation of the jam before reprising the chorus lyrics, holding the final note, and dropping into “Virtual Bean Dip”, which was true to its usual form for the final ten minutes of the first set.
The second set left the starting blocks with the band’s debut of The Cure’s “Love Song”, during which Moss let loose and brought the room to a quick and welcomed peak before concluding the song into a low drone and snapping into another Spafford catalog veteran, “America”. The uptempo jam never relented for its entire duration, and the band smoothly returned to the composition to close off the song. Tkachyk whipped a quick “kick, snare,” which is the trademark opening of the crowd-favorite “The Reprise”, but the setlist had other ideas as “Salamander Song” swiftly began. The closing call of “I’m Dancing the Whole Way Home” was gleefully echoed by the beaming fans, and the band took a short breather ahead of the final 40 minutes of their set. “Ginger Stardust” patiently worked its way through a soaring major peak and settled into a deep funk groove, ultimately winding its way into a 24-minute odyssey rendition of “Dirtbath” to close the set.
The band returned to the stage after the encore break to thank the audience with the earlier-promised and always-welcome “The Reprise”.
Spafford concludes the Northeast section of their tour this week, making stops in Burlington, VT; Syracuse, NY; and Stroudsburg, PA before setting up shop in NYC for their official Phish after-party on Saturday, April 23rd after the final night of Phish’s postponed New Year’s Eve run at Madison Square Garden. The band also has upcoming dates in Virginia Beach, VA; Knoxville and Nashville, TN; and they will wrap up their spring tour with an appearance at SweetWater 420 Fest on April 30th.
Check out photos from Spafford’s show at Boston’s Big Night Live on April 15th below, and for more information and to purchase tickets, visit the band’s website.
The post Spafford Stretches Out For Debut At Boston’s Big Night Live [Photos] appeared first on L4LM.
