Catcher, Been Stellar and Queen Crony played The Jungle – 7/20

A pair of NYC post-punk cohorts and a Boston crew allegedly giving their final bow took over Somerville’s Jungle for a free show last Tuesday.

I’m told that The Jungle (located adjacent to Backbar in Union Square) did exist in a pre-pandemic world, but somehow I never made it there (though I was kicked in the face during a Fiddlehead set at a show sponsored by Vans in an also-adjacent warehouse/wedding venue…). At any rate, I did finally venture to the reopened Jungle last week to check out this barnburner of a free gig.

Boston’s Queen Crony, apparently playing their last-ever show, kicked things off with a set of playfully odd art-rock. The band – whose vocalist Jolee Gordon also makes up one-half of Houndsteeth – toyed with genre and structure in a set alternately noisy, funny and danceable. They reminded me of a mid-afternoon Hassle Fest find, in the best sense. It was my first and I guess only time catching them, which does make me sad to see them go.

Been Stellar and Catcher, who are on tour together all over the place in the next few weeks, rounded out the evening in stirring fashion. The pair share some core influences in the canon, but while Been Stellar’s style tended more towards the chiming and melodic (vocalist Sam Slocum’s tambourine wielding was at least a little Gallagher-esque), Catcher’s was all about embracing chaos. Frontman Austin Eichler spent much of the set in the crowd, doing his damndest to keep the energy levels in the red and largely succeeding. The general ferocity of it all reminded me of one of my favorite sets of 2020’s extremely brief live music season: Bambara at our dearly-departed Great Scott.

It was a photogenic night, too. Check out a fairly lengthy gallery of the action, starting with Catcher, below.