Saintseneca at Crystal Ballroom, 3/17/23
When I heard that Saintseneca was performing at the Crystal Ballroom a handful of Tuesdays ago, my immediate reaction was, “I have to go.” The folk-rock band in question was not only performing at the venue in Tufts’ literal and metaphorical backyard (a breezy 5-minute bus ride from my off-campus apartment), but the band is rooted in Columbus, Ohio, which I also happen to be from. Or rather, I grew up in a suburb of Columbus, and Sainteseneca frontman Zac Little went to college at Ohio State (Go Bucks!) and hails from a farm somewhere in Noble County, a sparsely populated section of farmland at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
When I first matriculated to Tufts as an Ohioan, I was fully cognizant of all the memes and jokes about Ohio being a wasteland of capitalism, eldritch beings, and Republicans, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t lean into it a bit. It’s fun to embellish my upbringing a bit for my Bay Area and East Coast peers, and luckily I have plenty of harmless untruths to pick from. But I tend to give a more honest answer when people ask me what it was really like. The truth? I don’t know. Growing up in my specific part of Ohio (on the border of suburbia and farmland) was simultaneously everything and nothing like the memes say it is. Anyone from the Midwest can attest to this—there are aspects of growing up in Ohio that I wouldn’t trade for the world, and parts that were the reason that I tried to put as much space as I could between where I went to college and my hometown. Saintseneca is definitely one of the good parts of being from Ohio, though; they’re pretty much the only indie band from Columbus that I listen to regularly. Every time they come up in my shuffle nowadays, I feel a twinge of satisfaction knowing that a piece of Ohio is still here with me, so finding out that that piece of Ohio would be coming to Boston in a week (in my own backyard, no less) was too serendipitous for me to ignore.
Fast forward to the night of the concert, where I eagerly wait on the sidelines for Saintseneca to take the stage. 3 openers had already performed at this point, and already the level of craftsmanship on display was staggering: Sweet Petunia, local freak-folk duo, wowed early comers with their dueling banjos and pitch-perfect vocal harmonies. Kind Being, also local, served up some alt-rock jams that had everyone’s heads nodding along. Gladie’s set, fronted by Philly’s own Augusta Koch, was 45 minutes of fuzzed-out bangers. And in the back of the venue, I took specific note of the merch: totes, stickers, t-shirts, CD’s, most of it designed or handmade by the artist or friends of the artist (And of course, I have to take a second to shout out Hero King Embellishments, Zac Little’s handmade jewelry shop, which you can commission once he gets back from tour here).
I spot a friend of mine, Lee, in the front row, and my mouth immediately splits into a grin as I walk over to them. We met last year and bonded over being queer Tufts students from Ohio, and every interaction I have with them is always a pleasant one. Of course I would see them here. We talk a bit about the band and the openers, and they mention being a fan of Saintseneca since forever, to which I nod in agreement. Just as I am calculating the probability of two queerdos from Ohio going to Tufts and then meeting under the same roof for the Saintseneca concert, the lights dim, and I sweep myself away amidst the chaos to shoot the band.
The concert, of course, is fantastic. I’ve seen Saintseneca’s Tiny Desk concert on YouTube enough times to know that they can put on a show, and yet I was still blown away. Little, Caeleigh Featherstone, Jessi Bream, and Andy Cook played a healthy mix of songs that spanned their 14-year-long catalog, swapping locations on stage and switching instruments in between tracks with ease. No stone was left unturned, from the riotous “Ladder to the Sun” and achingly earnest “Frostbiter” from their last-released album Pillar of Na, to the Featherstone-led “Sleeper Hold” and the absolute head-banger that is “River” from 2015’s Such Things, and even a nod to 2011 with “Acid Rain,” the opening track on Last. A highlight of the set, in my opinion, was “Blood Bath,” a track from 2014’s Dark Arc that starts with just Little and his acoustic guitar, reedily singing what sounds like a lullaby,but by the end of the song is rife with gut-punch drums and howling guitar feedback. In person, the vocal harmonies between Little, Featherstone, and Cook felt almost primordial, as if they were awakening some sort of ancient being from its slumber. Saintseneca’s music has always had that kind of timeworn, archaic quality to it, but thanks to the synergy between this current rotation of the band, it was at its fullest effect that night. But they weren’t afraid to keep things light, either: “That was great!” Someone yelled out at one point during the set. “Thank you. That’s the kind of immediate feedback I need,” Little cracked into the mic, earning a laugh.
Having the privilege to watch Zac Little–sporting long red hair, formidable mustache/beard combo and a slim tuxedo jacket embroidered with roses on the shoulders–get so into the music was a treat as well. He even snapped a guitar string during the encore performance of the 8 minute “Pillar of Na”, which he fussed with a bit before ultimately deciding to play on, letting the string hang loose. Little also spent at least half the set with one or both feet off the ground as he swayed from side to side, practically waltzing with his guitar across the stage without missing a beat. The only point where his feet stayed firmly on the ground was during the acoustic portion of the set, where Little played “How Many Blankets Are In The World” to an enraptured audience. The band’s presence and artistry carried the audience through a stellar rendition of the bluegrass standard “Wait a Minute”, and they capped their set with their most popular song (and one of my favorite songs to sing,) “Happy Alone,” a hopeful, shuffling tune with the kind of hook that gets stuck in your head for days.
These days, it’s easy to shit on Ohio. I do it all the time. But I felt something like pride watching Saintseneca leave the stage last Thursday night to a packed, cheering venue. I think that for all the hell that I faced in Ohio, there is still a very valid part of me that misses the Midwest, that is proud to be from the Buckeye State, that can acknowledge the bad while reminiscing about the good. At the end of the day, no matter what happens in the future and no matter where I end up settling down, I will always answer every “O-H!” with an “I-O!”