Summer just ended. Fall just started. So let’s start making plans for spring, shall we?
Pabst Theater Group on Tuesday gave us a big hand with our seasonal plans by announcing two shows from a couple absolute bedrock 88Nine artists: Ratboys at the Vivarium on March 14 (technically still winter, but what is time anyway) and Wednesday at Turner Hall Ballroom on March 27.
It certainly seems like Ratboys will have a new album to tour by the time that Vivarium date rolls around. Along with their traveling plans, the Chicago quartet announced new single “Light Night Mountains All That,” the somewhat-odd title of which makes more sense when you hear the backstory they shared in a newsletter to their fans Tuesday:
We've been working toward this moment for pretty much the entire year and really since we wrote this tune while cooped up in a rural Wisconsin cabin last spring. Figuring this one out together was one of the most joyful and unhinged music-making experiences we've ever had as a band, and we hope you love the end result as much as we do. What's more, we made a wild DV cam music video for the song, directed and edited by Marcus.
The single is Ratboys’ first new music since 2023 breakout album The Window and their initial release on New West Records — a label switch that also points toward more fresh tunes coming in the not-too-distant future.
Switching toward some music released in the not-too-distant past, Wednesday kept their roll going with the release of another outstanding album last Friday and will bring the new material from Bleeds to Turner Hall Ballroom on March 27.
Following Rat Saw God’s takeover of the rock discourse in 2023 (man, that was a great year for albums) was never going to be an easy task, but darned if Wednesday didn’t pull it off with the record that dropped last week — one that, as this headline noted, “might be the rock album of the year.”
You can get all the backstory and analysis from Ann Powers’ typically meticulous review, but the short version is that Wednesday lead singer and lyricist Karly Hartzman delivered another batch of often-painfully unflinching words to go along with the band’s grounded sound. As Powers put it:
Punk's noise and country music's tear-stained sweetness blend together to represent the ups and downs of the everyday on Bleeds, but nobody in Wednesday is cosplaying in a cowboy hat. No, this is all Hanes t-shirts and tattoos, bikini tops for when the party moves into the backyard stock tank pool. Get the particulars right, and your stories will land with the heshers in Tacoma and the skaters in Arizona just like they do with your own crew. Hartzman and her band are nailing every one.
Tickets for Ratboys’ show March 14 at the Vivarium and Wednesday’s concert March 27 at Turner Hall Ballroom both go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. this Friday, Sept. 26, online and at the Pabst/Riverside box offices.
