Beeef at Faces Brewing, 6/18/22

Before the leaves turned red, before the cold wind started to flow through the streets, before it became October: it was summer, and Beeef was playing. They were playing in front of four shining beer tanks, and the windows were slightly open, and the air was soft and hot with sweat and shuffling feet. It was that perfect kind of summer night, the one where the air hits 72 degrees and whoever’s wearing a sweater is as comfortable as whoever’s wearing a t-shirt. But the air inside was as hot as the day, and everyone wanted it that way, because everyone was dancing. Everyone was dancing to Beeef playing their swooping guitars, and everyone was singing along to Beeef.

Everyone is waiting around for Tatooine Punk Scene to start playing. It’s 8:07pm, it's Saturday June 18th, it's that perfect June night. It’s Faces Brewing in Malden. It’s their back room; a small bar on one side of the room, and those four shining tanks of beer on the other side. There's a stage in front of the tanks, and between it, a room that holds maybe 100 people. Near the bar, Good Taste Records from Jamaica Plain is selling LP’s from a folding table. It's good, curated stuff. I flip through records and talk to the owner of Good Taste; they were one of those ill fated businesses that opened right when Covid hit. But they’re doing better and better and I make a mental note to stop by the next time I’m in JP. It’s Good Taste’s first time at Faces, and it’s most everyone else’s first time here too. This is just the second ever concert at Faces, which, as it turns out, was another of those businesses that opened right as Covid came about. It seems like shows have always been a goal for Faces, it's just that restrictions have finally opened up enough that they can fill their space with people and music. 

For their second ever show in the space, Faces seems to know what they're doing here. First off, the sightlines are great; the stage is off the ground enough that you can see the bands from the back, but it's not too high that the artists start to seem less and less like actual people. The room’s big enough to dance without being cavernous, the lighting is exciting without being distracting, the sound is loud enough to feel it but quiet enough that you can leave without your ears feeling like fuzzy caverns. It’s the perfect upgrade from a house show, and not just because it's not in a basement, but because it's a genuinely great setup. And looking at who’s coming in the weeks and months ahead, it's clear that whoever’s booking has a vision full of the best Boston guitar bands. Tonight’s lineup is no exception: Tatooine Punk Scene, Dutch Tulips, and Beeef. 

Tatooine Punk Scene takes the stage. They sound more like emo-adjacent rock than punk to me, but since when has a band name been an accurate description of a band? It’s not as though they’re from Tatooine either, although there is a certain sandy quality to their guitar tone. But they don't feel spacey, they feel grounded and the emotion I hear rippling through their lead singer’s voice is singularly un-alien and human. It doesn't really matter if their name matches their sound, because it's a name that sticks in your head for a week, and their sound sticks in mine for a while too. They play a set, then Dutch Tulips come on stage, another Boston area guitar group. They sound just as good, and on the speakers at Faces you can really hear each band’s sound and tone. With some speakers at some venues, a show can end up sounding like the same song 10 times over by 3 bands each, but here every moment of every song comes through. It lets me pick up on what I think almost sounds like some jangle in Dutch Tulips, even if their music is somewhere between popish and rockish in general. It's infectious, fun, but sincere. I make another mental note that I should try to see them sometime when they’re headlining.

Tonight’s headliner is Beeef, and as good as Dutch Tulips and Tattooine Punk Scene are, it’s Beeef who I’m there to see. When it comes to the wide and great collection of indie Boston guitar groups, my money's on Beeef. One of the biggest reasons I say that is because Beeef is singularly Boston, specifically Allston. There's something special about an indie band from your home turf, but there's something even more special about an indie band from your home turf that's proud of it and doesn't shy away from praising and joking and singing about it. It’s not just me who feels this way: going to a Beeef concert feels like going to a sports game where you're cheering on your hometown, except instead of balls being thrown around, it’s riffs and lyrics that have the audience bouncing and dancing. So on tracks like “Dogshit Paradise”, an anthem to Allston summers, the whole crowd is singing along to lyrics about meter maids, street noise and the T. Of course, Beeef is so much more than their occasional Boston shout-out; their lyrics connect back to the day-to-day of anyone with that same scream-the-lyric feeling. It seems like the whole audience knows all the words, or at least all of the choruses to Beeef’s songs; it seems like that if you know about Beeef, odds are you love them. 

There are a few songs that the audience doesn't know the words to, which are two new excitingly new tracks premiered at Faces. Later on setlist.fm, they’ll be listed as “Hummingbird” and “Narragansett”, and both have the audience dancing so much that it’s sure that once they’re released, everyone in the crowd will be singing along just as much as they are to the songs that came out on their first two albums. That’s because Beeef tease that there's a new album in the works, something the crowd is very excited by. It's been 4 years since Bull in the Shade came out, an album just as strong as their first, the self-titled Beeef. Besides the two new songs, their short but snappy set is made up of three from Beeef and three from Bull in the Shade, the first chord of each song sending a cheer and smile through the crowd, launched into a natural excitement, the kind where the audience claps along without any cue from the band.

So when Beeef finishes their set on that perfect, 72 degree June night, the audience isn't having it. Beeef is the definitive sound of that kind of Boston night, and 8 songs isnt going to cut it. There isn't any kind of planned encore here. The band is done. They’re packing up. But the audience isn't moving. It's right on the cusp of that infamous 11pm concert curfew time. Beeef make a quick decision and play one more, a quick one. They launch into “Time for Beeef”, the closing track of Beeef. It's a sharp little instrumental, and it dances across the stage to soundtrack the spinning and unbridled dancing of the audience, bouncing from one band member to the next, until it launches into its final chords, held out for ten seconds, until the last riff of the night is played, sent out to a unanimous and synchronous cheer of “Beeef! Beeef! Beeef!”, echoing out to a dangling twinkle, all until the music stops, and the crowd heads out with cheers, away into the June night.