Meet Me @ The Altar at Brighton Music Hall, 3/5/23
Meet Me @ The Altar rocks - like, really truly rocks. The pop punk trio swept into Boston on March 5th on their first ever headlining tour, charming all in attendance. Not only was their sound bright & brutal, but with their cheery demeanors and electric stage presence, Meet Me @ The Altar cemented themselves as an act to remember.
The band makes waves simply for existing - formed in 2015 & signed to Fueled By Ramen in 2020, they stood out just by being a lineup of non-cis white men in a scene dominated by them. They seem determined to make the most of their success, while also looking out for their fans, monitoring the frantic mosh pits (“at my first show, nobody checked if I was okay in the pit and I almost died!” frontwoman Edith Victoria said after one of many check ins) and swooping in with an excellent lineup of bands you wouldn’t see on any old tour.
Daisy Grenade opened the night to roaring applause and walked off the stage with a venue’s worth of new fans. While technically a duo composed of Dani Nigro and Keaton Whittaker, both from Brooklyn, all five members of the touring lineup brought their A-game to the show. Whittaker and Nigro are both vocalists to remember, often alternating lines and bringing captivating harmonies. The band played several songs off of their 2022 EP Sophomore Slump - a standout being “Borderline,” stripped down to an acoustic live performance and filled with haunting vocals - while also teasing some unreleased material for future tours.
Young Culture was up next, fronted by powerful vocalist Alex Magnan, and backed by guitarists Gabe Pietrafesa and Troy Burchett, who sling riffs like nobody’s (misery) business. Young Culture is a pop punk band for pop punk enthusiasts - many of their songs include sly references to song titles (even Lady Gaga makes an appearance, with a hint to “Bad Romance” sneaking into the lyrics of Young Culture’s top song “Kinda Over It.”) Their tongue-in-cheek set fired up the crowd even further, inspiring many a moshpit to snake around the center of the room. As their set closed, the room filled with gratitude for an excellent evening thus far and anticipation for the main event.
Meet Me @ The Altar’s set was pure fun. They were obviously ecstatic to be on their first headlining tour, kicking off their performance with their recently released single “Say It (To My Face).” The crowd went absolutely feral for “Hit Like a Girl,” with Edith Victoria’s vocals soaring brightly above a chugging guitar riff and bouncy drums.
The trio brought out a mix of old, new, and unreleased with long breaks just to chat with the crowd - at one point, guitarist Tea Campbell brought someone in the crowd’s phone on stage to take a BeReal with the attendees, and the band introduced the track “Rocket Science” with an anecdote from meeting actual rocket scientists earlier in the night at VIP. The fun continued with the short series of covers early on in the night (“You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette, “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne, “Take Me Away” by Christina Vidal, and a short section of Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar We’re Going Down” after an impassioned crowd chanted for a good two minutes.) “Kool,” their latest release, closed down the night with the entire room screaming along to “Obsessed / The tattoo on your face says you're down for forever / So am I /And that's why (you’re so cool.)”
The set came to an end with their encore song “Garden,” a standalone single from 2021. While the last note faded away, the band bowed, brightly colored hair flying, and trailed off the stage with a last goodbye. The crowd filed out into the night and as the merch stands slowly shut down, the same questions rose to everyone’s lips: “Weren’t they so good? Are they coming back again soon?”
