Words by Rohan Rindani // Photos by Nick Allen
JUNE 30 – Asheville band Wednesday is at the end of a 10 week tour, and openers Tenci want you to know they’re about to give it their all – but not before a set from the Chicago folk group blows the audience away. Frontwoman Jess Shoman’s operatic, birdlike vocals coalesce with pastoral guitar, saxophone, and flute to create an atmosphere that sucks the air out of the room for the entirety of their half hour stage time. In between short bursts of indie rock soundscapes, the band takes turns telling tour stories – Larry the “super woke” BP worker gets almost no reaction out of the crowd, prompting Shoman to comment on our silence. An audience member yells “Your guitar’s so cute!”. “Thanks, I bejeweled it!” she says, holding it up.
After a wonderful warmup set, Wednesday comes out with a surprise: it’s drummer Alan Miller’s birthday, and he gets to pick the setlist tonight. Despite the tour being in support of the new record Rat Saw God, Miller picks a good mix of tracks from across the band’s discography. Starting with tracks from 2021’s Twin Plagues, the roughly hour-long setlist winds through the five years of the band’s history before closing on the panoramic new single “Bull Believer”. Pedal steel virtuoso Xandy Chelmis ripped solo after solo while bassist and guitarist Ethan Baechtoid and MJ Lenderman demonstrated wonderful interplay, letting frontwoman Karly Hartzmann shine as the focal point of her songwriting. Wednesday builds songs around the simple things: sex stores, Mortal Kombat, fire departments, Narcan. Despite all the window dressing, these songs are here to tell a real story.
The atmosphere in the room is electric. A group of friends celebrating a birthday demand to crowdsurf to every song, and even in between some. Karly seems to think this is the funniest thing that’s happened all tour, and even asks them why they’re getting so excited. The answer, of course, is the band themselves, but with the shoegazing stage presence and conversational crowdwork between songs, it’s hard to tell if they’re aware of the effect they’re having on the room. Wednesday are natural born players, and even at the end of a season long tour, they manage to keep the air sucked out of a venue for as long as they’d like.
Rat Saw God is out now via Dead Oceans.
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