Wednesday played The Sinclair – 6/21
Asheville collective Wednesday sold out The Sinclair last week with support from Tenci.
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It’s conceivable that Wednesday have heard the fact that they do sometimes perform on an actual Wednesday riffed upon enough times. “One in seven,” bandleader Karly Hartzman retorted – nicely – when the day was noted by one of many enthusiastic audience members at The Sinclair last week, in one of many back-and-forths between band and crowd. Nearing the end of their highest-profile U.S. tour yet, the show found the five-piece loosened up and game for a freewheeling set of banter, requests and called audibles.
Wednesday have been quietly on the come-up for a few years now, but April’s widely-acclaimed Rat Saw God is the record that finally has them playing sold-out clubs, not just sold-out basements. The band’s third (or fifth, depending on which projects you count) LP follows a natural progression of their country-flavored grunge-gaze sound, but renders it tighter and brighter than ever. It comes as no surprise that it’s winning them plenty of converts.
Pulling largely from Rat and 2021’s Twin Plagues, the band sounded alternately fierce and tender on stage. They dialed down the racket for gentle swayers like “Formula One” and “How Can You Live If You Can’t Love…” while cranking up the six-string and lap steel howl of Hartzman, M.J. Lenderman and Xandy Chelmis for the set’s many spirited heights.
“She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)” – a Gary Stewart tune reshaped in the Wednesday image from last year’s Mowing the Leaves covers collection – emerged as a fan-favorite, as did towering set closer “Bull Believer.” That eight-minute cornerstone of the band’s new record might be their best song yet. Its dive-bombing guitars, simmering tension and climactic screams (which Hartzman encouraged the crowd to join in on, channeling whatever ailed them) stirred up a pit that sent the band’s devotees into the night cathartically unburdened.
Check out photos from the night below, including an opening set from Chicago indie-folk crew Tenci.
