article by Vij Banerji, photos by Emilio Herce
“You guys could have been at the Paul McCartney show tonight, and you chose to be here,” May Rio told the crowd midway through her set at Nightclub 101, a wry smile on her face. Chuckles filled the room — said concert had been announced that morning, and tickets had been near impossible to secure (the former Beatles show had understandably sold out within minutes).
The next morning, I found myself thinking back to that moment while, invariably, in line for Paul McCartney tickets. He had announced a surprise second night at the Bowery Ballroom. There’s a pretty amazing sense of community to be found in standing out in the cold, crammed between hundreds of other music lovers, in a line that wraps around the block. Arguably, there is no better place to make new friends in New York. (Alas, once again, no cigar on the tickets.) Being in community is possibly the best thing about watching live shows — whether the band delivers or not, a night surrounded by people who appreciate music as much as you do generally proves to be a good time. On that snowy February Tuesday at Nightclub 101, the audience was unfailingly attentive: silent during the quiet parts, loud and raucous at the end of each song, as timely as a sitcom laugh track after mid-set jokes.
The A-plus crowd at Nightclub 101 is impressive. The venue, a venture of the Baby’s All Right team, opened its doors last month and follows the Baby’s model, with a barroom in the front and a closed-off concert space in the back. Here, the vibe is East Village chic, with gleaming white finishes and brightly-colored acoustic ceiling panels — sure to become an Instagram story fixture. The space has already established itself as one of Manhattan’s most interesting places to hear indie music, featuring guest sets from the likes of MJ Lenderman and Japanese Breakfast.
Pleasure Systems frontman Clarke Sondermann assembled tonight’s bill. Opening act Whait, a collaboration between Wendy Eisenberg & More Eaze, saw the artists swapping a wide-ranging collection of acoustic and electric guitars over the course of their set, a pedal steel the most compelling. Their last song, also their strongest, was an abbreviated version of their new album — a hypnotic, soaring composition featuring Eisenberg’s fingerstyle arpeggios. Towards the end of their set, they revealed themselves as a couple, retrospectively adding a romantic sweetness to the whole performance.
Romance did seem to be the theme of the night, which only makes sense for a show so close to Valentine’s Day. May Rio performed, sans her “Elegant Ensemble,” a number of unreleased songs as well as a few older ones, accompanied by two guitars. The stripped-down set allowed her biting, poetic lyricism to shine. The songs spanned the full emotional range of love and desire — peppered with sardonic references to the dark and the painful. “You get me off like breaking glass, like busted lips, like breast and asses,” she sang, undulating between an entrancing head voice and a potent low register. If this is love, I’d hate to see heartbreak.
As the main act, Sondermann took to the stage in a stylish white button-up and tapered grey pants. Armed with an electric guitar, he took off on a setlist of love
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songs that verged on dream pop, backed by a bassist and a drummer, the latter of whom, Grant Chapman, played the entire set using brushes rather than sticks, expressing carefully-restrained control over his instrument, to outstanding effect. Sondermann, for his part, supplied earnest, sentimental vocals and twinkling
guitar riffs. He mentioned more than once that it was his first time performing with an electric guitar, which became more evident when he briefly switched to acoustic guitar. During the acoustic song, Sondermann seemed more at ease, his voice settling into the chords and ringing out across the crowd with fuller warmth and emotion.
Pleasure Systems, as a musical project, is, in a sense, exactly what it says on the tin: Sondermann is very interested in connection, intimacy, and the impact these “pleasure systems,” so to speak, have on our worldview. For example, a song about a significant other’s beard hair turned into a devastating meditation on mortality and grief. In another, which Sondermann introduced as having been co-written by his husband, it was impossible not to feel moved by the sheer romance of the moment. This is the power of a good live show — to turn an individual perspective into a shared experience, if only for the duration of a song.
The post Love is Everywhere at Nightclub 101 – With Pleasure Systems, May Rio, and Whait first appeared on Alt Citizen.