WILMINGTON — It was a night of rock ‘n’ roll and emotional deep dives when indie-rock supergroup boygenius took the Live Oak Bank Pavilion stage on June 14.
Formed in 2018, the group consists of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. They were fresh off opening for Taylor Swift in Nashville about a month before their Wilmington gig. In Swiftian surprise fashion, Phoebe Bridgers, billed as the opener, brought her boygenius mates onstage night one of the three-night engagement.
Wilmington concertgoers were in for a treat — that is once they made it past the long line of fans waiting to get T-shirts and found a place among the high population of teenage girls.
Up and coming alternative rocker Bartees Cox, under stage name Bartees Strange, opened the show. He released his second album “Farm to Table” in 2022. The musician warmed up the crowd with songs featuring a mix of hip-hop, indie rock and jazz, such as “Mulholland Drive” and “Boomer.”
Then it was time for boygenius’ entrance, proclaimed by the blasting of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys are Back in Town.”
The concert actually started offstage; in a pre-show ritual-like fashion, Bridgers, Baker and Dacus performed an a cappella ditty “Within You Without Them,” which opens their latest album, “The Record.”
They followed by blasting the second track, “$20.” The bandmates took turns singing verses from each song and belting lyrics like “always an angel, never a god,” and “I wanna be emaciated.”
Fans wanting to hear a certain track were in luck; the triple act played almost the entirety of their discography, also consisting of their 2018 self-titled EP. The group even performed songs from their solo work as the night’s encore.
Below are photos from the show, captured by Tom Dorgan of MoonFrog Media.
Bartees Strange
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