Bartees Strange at the Sinclair, 11/14/22
“I’m Bartees mother-fucking Strange” is one way to open a show, and if anyone can get away with it, it’s Bartees Leon Cox. Stopping at the Sinclair on his first-ever headlining tour and joined by openers Spring Silver and Pom Pom Squad, Strange was riding the coattails of his mid-pandemic breakout album Live Forever and his critically acclaimed follow-up Farm to Table.
Strange, who now calls D.C. home, brought the DMV with him as Maryland natives Spring Silver began the night with a weird and wonderful rock set, in which lead singer K Nkanza worked his pedalboard with precision and a bit of madness. Next up were post-punk band Pom Pom Squad, who were grateful just to be playing after a string of bad luck that included the theft of all of their gear in Milan. Frontwoman Mia Berrin alternated between hopping on guitar amps and playing her baby blue electric guitar parallel to the stage floor—all while sporting a pink princess-esque outfit that walked the same line between adolescent angst and serious, unforgiving grunge that Pom Pom Squad embodies.
When Strange finally appeared on stage after 10 p.m. he took the same genre- and mind-bending, frankly, strange, rock-indebted sound his openers developed and ran with it. Honeyed R&B vocals floated over weighty guitars, two poles anchored by impossibly speedy drumbeats from one of the most fantastic backing drummers I’ve seen (and the second female drummer of the night!) These elements clashed beautifully on songs like “Wretched”, the poppiest track off Farm to Table, which saw Strange pitching his body left and right while belting the synth-heavy chorus.
At times, the set felt like a basement grunge show, with raw songs like “Stone Meadows” and “Mustang” that centered the dissonance between his Oklahoma childhood and the polish of the music industry. At others, Strange captivated the audience over lush electronic beats on tracks like “Flagey God”, which transformed the Sinclair into a club dance floor complete with a funky guitar talk box that sent sirens echoing into the crowd.
Leaning into the changing tempo and energy of each track, Strange embraced a throughline of in-betweenness. Born in England as an Air Force kid, growing up in Oklahoma, and inhabiting the primarily white space of indie-rock as a black man—Strange has plenty of contradictions to grapple with. He moves with equal parts discomfort and confidence, easily shifting from “I’m Bartees mother-fucking Strange” to professions of gratitude and humility in the space of a single song.
What anchors him in space and time is his precise cataloging of the present, commenting on the pains of touring on “Cosigns” and penning heartbreaking lyrics on “Hold the Line”, which places the listener in the perspective of George Floyd’s daughter following his death. When Strange sang “what happened to the man with that big old smile,” the entire audience held their breath in a rare moment of stillness. This same attention to detail and intense focus brought Strange to his knees several times during the set, playing his guitar with every ounce of vulnerability he had left.
Closing out the show with the stripped-down R&B slow jam “Hennessey,” Strange gave the Sinclair a short set, but one that brimmed with intention and a wider breadth of emotion than many two-hour sets could have accomplished.
