SkeeYee: The 10 Best Shows I Saw in 2023

Bless up to Alvvays, X, Sky Ferreira, Liz Phair, the Postal Service, the Breeders, Marshall Crenshaw

The one and only Bikini Kill at Franklin Music Hall

10. The Beths (Union Transfer)

This wasn’t quite the rush I experienced when I realized the ensemble power of the New Pornographers live around 2017 or so with violinist rounding out the sheer aural mass of so many people onstage, harmonizing, holding songs together like columns of Roman architecture (they’d love that analogy). But what a feeling to watch so much plainly good songwriting take shape before your eyes with excellent singing, playing, lyricizing, etc. The pre-encore knockout stretch of “I’m Not Getting Excited,” “You Wouldn’t Like Me,” the frenetic Tristan Deck-Elizabeth Stokes showcase “Little Death,” and finally, “Silence Is Golden” and “Expert in a Dying Field,” the two greatest rock songs of 2022. I saw Alvvays at Dell Music Center in 2023, too, and they were lovely, I preferred their album to these Kiwis’. But they almost stood completely still lest they fumble the weight of the compositions and the delicacy of their complex shapes. The Beths’ perfectionism left more room for the exigences of rock’n’roll, and they had the patter to deflate themselves, too.

9. Be Your Own Pet (Underground Arts)

In many ways, you still can’t do better than this band, who would’ve owned an indie-rock 2000s in a non-Pitchfork timeline, though you can’t quite blame the Strokes either. People just prefer cool bands that keep their cool sometimes, and BYOP never did. Their shrieking bummedness was directly plugged into pizza, zombies, claiming groupies only act like they do anal for clout, etc. If the Strokes were attention-starved manchildren, these Nashville enfants terrible were kids who understood early that bullshitting hurt. Jemina Pearl is one of the best frontpeople you’ll ever live to see, especially in punk. There will be no equaling their 2008 Maxwell’s show, but you’re still better off seeing them even at 65% power, which most people have not. This whole reunion has still been sorely underattended, including at a very roomy UArts, where the more Joan Jett-speed tunes from Mommy blended seamlessly with their freakishly paced teenage output, as well as Devo’s “Girl U Want” and the Damned’s “Neat Neat Neat” because songful punks loved and evolved into new wave. Now that they count Olivia Rodrigo (sort of) as a labelmate, catch them while you can.

8. Soul Glo (First Unitarian Church)

As for the less songful punks, on the rise in an unlikely hardcore moment that’s somehow been outdone by an even more improbable shoegaze moment, some of them deliver the breakneck torrentials promised. I missed the opening Zulu, figuring what are they gonna do, sample the Curtis Mayfield stuff from the stage, and now I wish I didn’t because I still wonder. After all, the headliners walked out to the ceaseless synth-pings of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” and the room already went crazy before dividing into circle pits for blinding snowstorms with titles like “We Wants Revenge” and the new “The Hardest R.” Organized rage is indeed a rush in a roomful of weaponized elbows and occasionally a familiar-or-is-it-legible riff or (gulp) lyric. Pierce Jordan made a speech at one point that could’ve used some obfuscating noise, but the room was feeling him so I did, too.

7. Emperor X (Ukie Club)

No one who knows this much about the politics of public transit and the limitations of his skill set vis-a-vis compressor repair could be settling for the lone income stream of simply touring but Chad Matheny performs like his next bus charter depends on it. The opening guy from the Hotelier included the only two tunes I needed (“Two Deliverances,” “An Introduction to the Album”) before the man of the hour took over to claim a lot of new fans by hotwiring emo, folk-punk, some triggered synthcraft and computer stuff, and sadly nothing from my almost-AOTY EP about, well, the politics of public transit, but otherwise a great catchup of greatest hits from “Allahu Akbar” to “Wasted on the Senate Floor” to “Sad React” to “False Metal” and “Stars.” I also missed “Communists in Luxury” but that riff needs a band to twist around and I don’t wanna burden a hard-strumming solo performer with the limitations of his skill set.

6. Amyl and the Sniffers (Union Transfer)

I mostly invested ticket money in punks as you’re probably noticing, and these Aussies are nearly a Vegas draw compared to the others on this list. But showmanship and professionalism are not mutually exclusive with rock’n’roll or even punk power and I’ve never been a scene stalwart. Amy Taylor is a convulsing panther who isn’t above what’s basically twerking, her band has lodged riffs in my head (“Security,” “Hertz,” “Don’t Fence Me In”) like shrapnel, and collectively their touring has earned word-of-mouth that few meat-and-potatoes acts garner (Control Top) or live up to (Idles). The albums kick ass, too.

5. Sexyy Red (The Fillmore)

Speaking of twerking. The only pop phenomenon I saw in 2023 had the best crowd by far, the largest non-dude to dude ratio I’ve seen at a rap show since Drake and Lil Wayne at Forest Hills in 2013 and I bet it was eclipsed. Asses thrown in all kinds of polygons clouded by weed smoke almost as thick (as well as several big, bare bellies including the pregnancy-flaunting star). I’d say Janae Wherry was even more liberating as an idea these fun-havers built on than a fully realized artist, though Hood Hottest Princess sustains and even the Trumpian bloat of its deluxe edition has some worthy bonus cuts albeit in misbegotten form. She conserved energy for the oft-threatened “Pound Town”/”SkeeYee” finale by splitting up a bra-off-more-for-freedom-than-sex-travaganza into about three acts if you count the ass-shaking contest where the biggest girl got the loudest cheers. The word “bootyhole” appeared many, many times in both call and response form. I’m not sure she’ll stick around longer than DaBaby, who was also hot live, but as with her coochie-stretching breakthrough bop, she knows what her faithful need right now.

4. Militarie Gun (Underground Arts)

Ian Shelton is a visionary whether he or Turnstile had the idea first. Even with Roc Nation management and Taco Bell licensing, he still proudly posted his debut album personally in Facebook hardcore groups on release day. The hardcore pedigree excuses his flubbed notes in person, and also the fact he spent a significant portion of a packed UArts show atop human hands, arms, and heads. It also powers the monster riffs and choruses his court-holding openers Scowl and synth-dependent MSPaint are still figuring out. Not only did I feel like I was witnessing alt-rock birthing a new chapter of itself, I had a great time having it shouted back at me off-key: “Bloody bastard leeches!” “So I get very high!” “Waste my time, waste my life!” Shelton roared these like he came up in basements, but more importantly, like they were hits. Even Taco Bell could see that.

3. Low Cut Connie (Medford Oktoberfest and Music Festival)

This list strives a lot less for the futile objectivity of my usual criticism, so when the most prominent piano-thrasher to emerge since Ben Folds whose crowds I’ve warmed up gives me a hug midsong during his typical rounds in the audience, you’ll have to believe everybody else about his bona fides. All Adam Weiner ever wanted is for us to say yes yes yes, to graduate with a rock’n’roll master’s degree and carve a spot for himself in the pantheon. And as meaty and thoughtful as their albums remain, there’s nothing like catching the sweat-soaked versions in their live show, which is hardly just Weiner. This one was my first time catching the gorgeous early “Full of Joy” and emotionally accessing some of the more WXPN-oriented recent fare like “Are You Gonna Run?” It was also free to the public while I chomped tacos and a waffle cone full of maple-syrupy fried chicken.

2. Bikini Kill (Franklin Music Hall)

This might’ve easily been the best show I saw all year (decade?) if not for two factors. The terrorism of a personal circumstance that made threats to me and mine in direct relation to this very event, and the eternal lameness of Franklin Music Hall, whose crimes against sound and experience include failing My Bloody Valentine in 2013 and I’m sure contributed to why a Liz Phair set comprised of probs-my-fave rock album front to back plus bonus hits fell short of this top ten (for scale, I cried during the first song — also “6’1” — the last time I caught her about 15 years ago). But there’s almost nothing better than this band, who gleefully tore through everything you could’ve wanted, showed me that non-Kathleen members sing more than I realized, and would teach Trumpies how much more uptight they and their preferred standups are if they could be taught anything. They may have been other punk bands as great, there definitely weren’t any as funny. I bought these tickets before COVID and I’m just so glad I (and they) lived long enough to share this. Even Franklin Music Hall couldn’t fuck up some power chords, so this is a reprieve.

1. Yo La Tengo (Union Transfer)

But the best band in the universe with hearts still beating, stage presence riveting, and creative synapses still firing is Hoboken’s finest, as I realized at Frantic City in 2022 a few months before their comeback album reminded the BNM set how it’s done. Not that their 2010s output wasn’t drastically undervalued, including the covers LP I stupidly gave a 6 and the ambient-noise revelation Pitchfork stupidly did the same. In Atlantic City, I got the all-time stretch of “Decora,” “Tom Courtenay,” “Ohm,” and a life-affirming “Blue Line Swinger” all in a row with Fred Armisen sitting in on a second drumkit. This time they did everything else: my first time witnessing “Sugarcube,” “Flying Lesson,” “Today Is the Day,” “Speeding Motorcycle.” Plus most of a 17th album that earned such a generous portion of two sets, one quiet and one much less. In the environs of UT’s immaculate, deceptively intimate sound and sanely conceived standing room, I’ve never been so happy at a show. I’m also bearing down on 40 and these world-class interviewees are in their 60s. This stupid world is all we have.