Waterparks at the House of Blues, 5/26/23
I’m no stranger to a Waterparks show, given that this was my 6th time seeing the Houston trio take the stage. Neither was the crowd of glitter-doused fans that swarmed the Boston House of Blues on a Friday in late May. “Parx,” as Awsten Knight, Otto Wood, and Geoff Wigington are known amongst long-standing fans of the pop-punk band, is the kind of group that gathers repeat attendees as easily as breathing due to their always-evolving sound and witty stage banter. What we all were strangers to was being recorded for a live DVD — the band included. That’s right — a few hours before the show began, frontman Knight tweeted out a red square emblazoned with the words “ALMOST FORGOT, WE’RE FILMING THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LIVE IN BOSTON DVD TONIGHT.” Safe to say, I was stoked when I waltzed into the venue. Waterparks never fails to disappoint and their electric performance was about to be turned up to eleven.
Bright, venomous red was the color of the evening, mimicking the album cover of their 5th studio album, Intellectual Property. The fans lining the barricade as I crept into the pit all sported crimson on one part of their body, be it stars worked into intricate makeup or an armband woven through a fishnet top. If red wasn’t their color, I was sure to spot another neon somewhere on their body in electric harmony with the band’s bright and rowdy aesthetic.
Elliot Lee was the first on the stage for the evening. Their bubblegum + skulls aesthetic and hyper-bedroom-pop tunes got the crowd bopping along as the solo artist bounced onto the stage with a bunny hat and a message of cultivating “[a] voice for the voiceless, soldier for the different.” While most of their music is energetic and bouncy - like a cooler nonbinary Yungblud out of Brooklyn, especially with songs like “Dirt” or “Pink (Freak),” which Lee closed with — they proved their range by sitting down in the center of the stage in a cloud of bubbles to sing a beautifully soulful tune about gender struggles and feeling out of place. As the pink lights dimmed on their last song, they sashayed right back off the stage to thunderous applause.
Up next was HUNNY who kicked off with “Natalie,” the fourth track on their 2015 EP Pain/Ache/Loving. With a sound similar to Weathers or a Blink-182/Bleachers crossover, the indie group produced hit after hit even though only two of their four members graced the stage. Having never seen HUNNY perform before, I was clueless as to if this was a normal setup for them — however, guitarist/singer Jason Yager and bassist Kevin Grimmett killed it as a duo. The lights shifted to a neon yellow as they continued with more songs from the 2019 album Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, such as the head-bopping “Halloween” as well as some newer singles like their sole 2023 production thus far, titled “action→reaction.” They closed with obvious crowd favorite “Televised” — if you’re a fan of bouncy guitar riffs, tempo changes, and lots of high hats on the drums such as myself, I would highly recommend giving HUNNY a listen.
9pm hit. Finally. Finally. The sold-out House of Blues ballroom went pitch black. Huge screens with a tunnel in the middle flashed red. Wood slunk out from the center and onto the drums; Wigington followed, a red guitar flashing in the dimness. Knight strolled lazily out behind both of them, clad in a thick parka with its white fur hood framing his face. He lifted the microphone up and began the first lyrics of Intellectual Property’s opening number “St*rfucker” — “I’m gonna move out of my loft/and into a limousine, so I can drive you fuckin’ crazy/ and crash out where I sleep, yeah.” The crowd joined in. Wood slammed on the drums, Wigington spun atop a wooden platform, and Knight dropped the hood of his parka as they launch into the rest of the song. Waterparks was on.
Immediately after they dropped into a personal favorite of mine, “Numb,” from their second-to-most-recent album Greatest Hits. Confetti erupted from hidden cannons during the breakdown, reminding me once again that a professional film crew was recording right now. The excitement in the room skyrocketed, the energy immediately shifted, a huge circle pit formed, and the concertgoers surrounding me didn’t let up for the rest of the evening.
It’s a good thing they didn’t, too, as Parx brought their A-game for both the setlist and stage banter. Knight always chats with the crowd between songs but was feeling especially talkative — at one point, the show even came to a screeching halt as he facetimed his parents, scolding the crowd for letting him call his mom with only 8% phone battery. The songs spanned all five of their albums and one of three EPs. “Crave,” from rarely-played EP Cluster, features a verse from guitarist Wigington and brought ear-shattering cheers. Most of the songs were from Intellectual Property — this was, after all, the Property Tour — but the band brought out a lot of high-energy favorites from past albums as well, such as their breakout song “Stupid for You.” Knight’s vocal range really shone in this setlist as he skipped from extra-poppy songs like “2 BEST FRIENDS” to pure ragers like “War Crimes” to the robotically heart-wrenching “[Reboot].” An acoustic session allowed for a bit of a break as some rarely-seen tunes were brought out — “Powerless” from debut album Double Dare was a special treat. We were then, of course, thrust right back into the highest of high energy in the aptly named “I Miss Having Sex But At Least I Don’t Want to Die Anymore.”
Property album closer and certified banger “A NIGHT OUT ON EARTH” ended the set, but not the night. A cheer and a chant brought them all right back on stage for their encore, slinking out under more red lights to end the night with single “REAL SUPER DARK,” personal favorite “Turbulent,” and “FUNERAL GREY.” As Awsten Knight sang the last lines of “FUNERAL,” “float my way, I’m melting for you,” over a roaring crowd, an immense amount of pride swept through me. The first time I saw Waterparks live was on their first-ever headlining tour in a tiny room in Lawrence, Kansas, when both the band and myself were totally different people. Six years and four albums later, we’ve both evolved and found ourselves in Boston, sharing a night (out on earth?) immortalized forever by the pictures shown here on my end and the DVD to come on theirs. While a Waterparks show is always a treat, May 26th was a treasure.
