Durand Jones and the Indications, an R&B/Soul group from Indiana, have been touring like mad since 2021. The group’s popularity has exploded in recent years – their song Witchoo, for example, was featured on Barack Obama’s 2021 list of favorite music. While their name and sound simply seem to be in the zeitgeist, many folks got their introduction to the band through 2020’s cult-followed Hulu show High Fidelity which showcased “Is It Any Wonder“.

The band played Portland’s Crystal Ballroom on mid-May Wednesday evening. While the show was not technically sold out, it felt like it might as well have been – the room was standing room only, shoulder to shoulder. La Doña, a Chicana singer/songwriter from San Francisco, opened the show in a fantastic, fiery red matching pantsuit. With the first notes she sang her jubilant music spurred an immediate reaction from the crowd,  “I don’t want to hear no ‘Oh Yeah’s’ if you’re not shaking your ass” she called out to the crowd. 

La Doña commented on the diverse crowd in Portland (including a shout-out to her fellow Chicanos) and she was on the money – while many shows in Portland tend to draw crowds that look like they would have sat at the same lunch table in school, the crowd at this event was as diverse as it was large. Not only were Black and Mexican Portlanders here in stride, but social groups at the show ranged from high school tween girls to middle-aged couples out for a night on the town. There was not even any one style of dress that seemed to link the audience members, only the desire to scream and shout and, for lack of a better word, boogie as the night wore on. 

As expected, Durand Jones deftly commanded the room. The show opened with “Circles,” a song that, in this context, feels full of anticipation. But this was only a warm-up though because, by the time the band began playing the third song of the night, “Love Will Work It Out,” we were blessed with Jones’ signature voice – long, high, and clear, holding on to the words as if to stretch them out for eternity. To say the crowd went wild is an understatement. 

There was no sign of the grueling tour schedule in his voice – or the band’s playing for that matter. Even more than that, it appeared that every little interaction, from opener to headliner and between band members, was approached with a smile and a laugh. In a packed venue where the crowd has been waiting over an hour to see the band play, it is not uncommon for tensions to rise. Here, however, the jovial attitudes spread from band to audience and back again. 

While both La Doña and Durand Jones and the Indications toy with a vintage flair, the alchemy of music, laughter, energy, and joy on stage kept us solely in the present. In an era where almost nothing feels new anymore, this show captured the ever-evasive authenticity that everyone seems to be chasing.

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When Wet played the Wonder Ballroom in 2018, fresh off the release of their second studio album Still Run, lead singer Kelly Zutrau asked the audience to quiet down for one of their slower ballads, “These Days”. The audience, stoked for a crowd favorite, could not keep quiet. Maybe out of frustration, maybe out of sheer exhaustion, Kelly wept on the stage saying, “I am sorry, this has just been such a long tour”.

It is 2022 now and much has changed. For one, long-time bandmate Marty Sulkow, who had left the band before Still Run, has rejoined the group for their third album Letter Blue. The band has also left their contract with Columbia Records, citing budget restraints and bureaucracy straining their creative instincts. Instead, they have been producing their newest music independently. For a band lauded as a pioneer in sad indie synth-pop, these changes have brought about a renaissance – and the fans could not be more in love.

So high is the level of trust in Wet’s taste – and branding – that the room was filled even for the opener, Zsela (image above), at Wet’s show in Portland at the Doug Fir Lounge on May 9th. For an artist with only 9 of her own songs on Spotify (not counting remixes) the audience swayed and sang along, cheering and clapping enthusiastically in all of the right places. Commitment to Wet may have brought the audience in, but Zsela enraptured them with her ethereal voice and incredibly modern cover of Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend”. 

The show was sold out, and as the time inched toward 10 PM the already intimate space grew more and more crowded. The mood, however, did not change. The Monday night show was not sold out by friends of fans and the kind of attendees who had heard of the band but were mostly looking for something to do, but by true fans, the kind of fans that knew every word to every song. The kind of fans that would rage for songs that one might also cry in the shower to. Not an insignificant number of folks came solo, swaying, singing, and raising their cups to one another. The crowd not only loved the band but truly wanted to see them succeed. As soon as the band stepped on stage and began playing the opening chords of  Letter Blue’s “Larabar,”  cries of “ohmygod, I love this song” filled the space; cries that repeated in all corners of the venue during every single song in Wet’s set. 

Early on in the show, about two or three songs in, there was a bit of a technical malfunction. The microphone – or was it the amp? – would emit a loud popping sound every few seconds. There was a flash of distress on Kelly’s face, and the close observer would notice Joe Valle and Marty Sulkow glance at each other as if to say, “what the fuck are we going to do here”. For half a second the crowd seemed to hold its breath. And then someone screamed, “WE LOVE YOU KELLY” and then “AND MARTY,” and someone else “AND JOEY TOO.” The microphone popped a couple of more times but, like the professionals they are, a few tweaks were made and the show went on. 

Where previous Wet shows have been raw and emotional, this one oozed professionalism. The band performed a story of friendship, of breaking apart and coming back together stronger and more creative than before. Producer Joe Valle, in particular, let loose on stage in what can only be described as pure joy in the art of performing. Several times he would glance across the stage at bandmate Marty, the two would share a smile, and the next drop would come with renewed vigor. Songs that previously seemed to be about breakups from romantic partners, in this context, seemed to be about the hurt and power in the relationships that often outlast our romantic ones – the ones with our friends.

In “11 Hours”, a song about being gaslit by and eventually drawing boundaries with a romantic (or maybe musical) partner, Kelly laments: 

You leave me no choice
I’ve waited 11 hours
Up all night, you took my power
You, you.

Instead of performing the song with the kind of frailty and vulnerability that is heard on the album, Kelly sang it with the kind of strength that can only be seen by someone who is on the other side, by someone who has taken back her power. 

As in 2018, though, the crowd, so full of love and support, could not keep quiet throughout the entire set. Ecstatic cheers accompanied every song. There was a chorus of “oh my god her voice” as Kelly sang. When the encore came around, Kelly said to the audience that they would perform one or two more songs. Someone in the front screamed back “Three more songs! Three more songs, respectfully!” Perhaps in a different year, at a different time, this would have influenced the band to do other than what they had rehearsed. Instead, they closed with “Only One” and “You’re the Best”, a song that has been around since their first EP in 2014. A song that, in its origination, listens as one about the moment that comes before a breakup – when that small but persistent voice in your mind tells you that ending this is the right thing to do, but finds itself still unready to admit the faults in your partner. As a closing song, it feels like an ode to the audience:

But, baby, you’re the best
We’ll figure out the rest
And maybe it’s a test
I think we’d better quit while we’re ahead

A song, transformed.  It’s a celebration of a great show and the insertion of a strong but respectable boundary; one that says we love this art and this job and this support, but now it is time we go home.

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Porches, a synth-pop project of New York-based musician Aaron Maine, performed at Portland’s Wonder Ballroom last week. The show seemed beset with technical difficulties but Maine’s excitement to be performing for this crowd infected the room with an energy I have not seen since before the pandemic. 

Porches music often shows up on ‘cool girl’ Spotify playlists (see: ‘fit check or Ethereal) and will often make its way onto your (definitely my) Discover Weekly playlist. It seems to fall into that category of music you have vibed to but maybe have not sought out on its own. Or, for those who have sought it out, it is a very “the girls [who] get it, get it,” kinda vibe, as the TikTok girlies say. What makes it cooler than cool, however, are not the mixes or the incredibly on-trend aesthetic, but the earnestness with which Maine performs and sings. It was this earnestness and pure joy that stole the show that Saturday night. 

From the very first song (“Okay” off of the new album All Day Gentle Hold!) it felt like Maine might run right off of the stage, testing the laws of gravity: he jumped and while holding his guitar did an almost Naruto run from one end of the stage to the other. Throughout the evening he would periodically let out a long, ecstatic screech into the microphone, co-creating with the audience a type of energy of exhilaration that on occasion was nearing on delirium (in the best kind of way).

The audience knew nearly every word to every song from All Day Gentle Hold! The more the audience responded, the more Maine lost himself in the music: “This next song is my favorite song to perform,” he said about halfway into the show, but this became a refrain he repeated often throughout the performance. “No, actually, this song is my favorite song to perform” and the crowd would, again, scream in support of Aaron Maine’s new favorite song. Perhaps in this fashion we have all discovered at least one new favourite song to take home.

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