Last Thursday, On A Friday put on an incredible show at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge featuring newcomer DJ Nooka Jones, Mystery Roar and Pretty & Nice.
Jones, with his electro-classical beats, surprised the audience with the sheer energy he brought to the stage. He quickly shed his initial hesitance as the dulcet piano tones meshed with the strong techno beats, lulling the audience into a sleepy dance trance. The energy soon picked up and became amplified in his second-to-last song with added vocals by Dan Omphroy. The vocals supplied the missing link between Jones’s beats and the audience, inviting the crowd to dance and sing along to lyrics that perfectly described not only Jones’s set, but those of the two bands to come: ‘Cause it makes you feel’hellip; so damn good.’
The Middle East, famed for its impeccable taste in music, transitioned the crowd into the surprisingly fabulous set by Mystery Roar. Within the first minute of their impossibly catchy eighties-electro-pop-synth-dance-rave set, the crowd was on their toes, yelling lyrics 80 percent of us had never heard before.
Appropriately shrouded in mystery, the nominees for Best New Act in the 2009 Boston Music Awards put on an unforgettable, erotically charged set, completed by lead singer Nate Bluhm’s tight white jeans, Pretty & Nice-emblem muscle shirt, and seventies porn star dance moves. ‘Why Can’t I See,’ Goldie Hawn-and-Kurt Russell inspired ‘Overboard’ and ‘Fantasies’ were among the most memorable songs, supported by a bright red keytar and intensely suggestive lyrics inviting the listener to ‘get back to mayhem’ and ‘share our desires.’
While Mystery Roar almost stole the show, it achieved the next best thing by leaving the audience screaming for more. Keeping with the theme of breakout bands, Mystery Roar is definitely one to watch out for in 2010.
The anticipation for Pretty & Nice was almost palpable in the 10 minutes between sets, and the jittery audience was not disappointed. Fresh from its European tour with The Get Up Kids, Pretty & Nice opened with an adrenaline-heavy mash-up of The Hives’s ‘Abra Cadaver’ and ‘Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones,’ introducing itself with a simple ‘We’re actually pretty and nice’ before launching into an wild performance of ‘Wandering Eye.’
Perhaps the band’s strongest asset is the energy it brings to the stage and, as a result, to the audience. This manifested itself in the crazed dancing of otherwise still-headphoned hipsters and a very forceful mosh pit. In the one year betwen shows, the only difference is that lead singer Jeremy Mendicino’s distinctive hair has been replaced with, as Mystery Roar singer Bluhm noted, a ‘resplendent beard.’
Album tracks ‘Piranha’ and ‘Tora Tora Tora’ were punctuated with new songs, a particular favorite of which was ‘Hyena.’ The band also tore through two songs rare for its live show: EP track ‘Pretty Shells,’ in which guitarists Mendicino and Holden Lewis traded stiff guitar strums and crooned a dreamy melody in separate octaves through the bridge, and ‘Solar Energy,’ from 2008’s Get Young, which showcased new drummer Kevin Walsh’s aptitude for the band’s disjointed and jittery rhythms in his first show with Pretty & Nice.
