Lambrini Girls live @ Paradise Rock Club, Boston MA [06-17-26]

It’s not easy making friends. At least that’s the case for me now. I think about that a lot, because I consider myself an extrovert. Maybe, I’m a total asshole and I just don’t know it? Maybe it’s because I live in Boston or because people I know keep moving away. Also, I’m in my forties with a family. Who knows? But yeah, making friends in this city hasn’t been easy.

One person I DID meet in Boston is Kurt.  We both work for Razorcake (him still in a larger capacity) and as soon as we met, I realized that we had way too much in common for our friendship not to escalate. We loved the same music and had distinct but overlapping perspectives on social and political issues. The city changed and our lives changed a lot. The bar we met at and kept frequenting, the Lower Depths in Kenmore, doesn’t exist anymore. One reason I consider our friendship special is because we always made an effort to see each other. That’s kind of rare nowadays. I’ve always believed that where there’s a will there’s a way. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Kurt was always up to something cool. He would be working on columns for Razorcake, or on a career shift, or on a “mob tour” about the North End. When Covid happened, I still saw Kurt regularly. We started having movie nights at our house on Friday and he would be a regular. When Covid ended, we made an effort, even on weekdays, to meet up. Either at our respective stomping grounds or halfway. Frequently we would meet at Night Shift Brewery in the North End. I would always ramble, and he would listen. When he got a job in Western Mass that would fit into his new career, I knew I’d be losing a close friend, but we still managed to see each other as often as possible. Several times a year, we would meet halfway in Worcester, an hour’s drive for each of us, at a bar, pub, brewery, or restaurant. It really wasn’t that hard, because like I said, all you have to do is make an effort. If you WANT to see your friends, you can make it happen.

Our conversations would always involve our personal lives, but we would also talk about music. One band we really loved was Lambrini Girls. Their album Who Let the Dogs Out was just a cool, fearless, fun, unapologetic, blunt and punchy album and we talked about how great it would be to go see them live together. We’d never been to a show together, believe it or not.

But then, Kurt moved to Indiana. Of course I was sad, not just because I’d be losing a very close friend, but I’d be losing the closeness of that friend, and I fear I might never see him again. What are we supposed to do, fly to Cleveland to meet halfway?

All this stuck in my head at the Lambrini Girls show in Boston. The ladies had to postpone their earlier show at the Paradise from an April date, when all the college students would be present, to mid-June, when school was out and the city’s population shrank by 160000. No matter, because the show was still sold out and the venue packed with sweaty and excited fans.

Of course I text Kurt during the show. “Seeing the Lambrini Girls in Boston without you doesn’t seem right.” He was receptive to this text and wanted a brief summary of the show.

How was the show? Great, of course. It’s hard not to have a great show when both the band and the crowd are all smiles and having so much fun. Lambrini Girls play loud and relentlessly and their touring drummer plays like she’s been with the band since the very beginning. Of course, it’s a bit performative as singer Phoebe Lunny keeps breaking the momentum of the set by asking the crowd to split in the middle just to have them mosh right back, and with constant basic call-and-response chants like “when I say Fuck, you say Trump!” but that’s to be expected from this band since they love to preach to their choir and their crowd is mostly just choir. I’m cool with that. My only complaint really is that they didn’t play a longer set. Oh, the setlist was full of bangers for sure, but would it have killed them to also play “Nothing Tastes as Good as it Feels” and “Filthy Rich Nepo Babies” instead of “Craig David” which is barely a song?

So yeah, a quick 45 minute set that was a bit short but highly satisfying. The Lambrini Girls put on a show as fun and entertaining as their albums. It’s full of energy and bound to infect all in attendance, and yes, will leave you wanting more!

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