The Walkmen played Roadrunner – 10/14
The reunited Walkmen brought the final leg of their 2023 tour to Roadrunner with support from Rostam.
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After a decade in stasis, idiosyncratic indie rockers The Walkmen came roaring back to life earlier this year with a campaign they titled their “Revenge Tour,” which is amusing for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, The Walkmen don’t especially come across as guys who are seeking revenge on anybody. Surely there are shades of darkness across their discography – a streak of animosity definitely characterizes signature song “The Rat” – but their tone was often of a gentler, more mysterious nature than that of their Meet Me in the Bathroom contemporaries. Emerging from the ashes of the influential Jonathan Fire*Eater in early 2000s Harlem, The Walkmen distinguished themselves by the timbre, texture and atmosphere of their songs – and an oft-restrained quality that made the moments they did let loose pack all the more punch.
Moreover, the band signed off in 2013 following a tour behind the elegant swan-song Heaven, in a contented and satisfying coda to a 13-year run that garnered consistent critical acclaim and a sizable following. Still, I always felt the band’s unique qualities went slightly under-appreciated during their initial run. Maybe they did too; enter: The Revenge Tour. Or perhaps it’s just a good bit to name a reunion of friends to play some old tunes as if it’s a professional wrestling exhibition. Either way.
The tour made a stop at this Spring’s Boston Calling (the band also played the very first edition, way back when), but only during its last few shows did we get a proper headlining set around these parts. The expansion from a daytime festival slot of course enabled more ground to be covered, stretching the setlist to 20 songs and making room for cuts like the moody, humming “What’s In It For Me” (which worked brilliantly in the opening slot here, but might’ve had less reach in the blazing sun across an athletic field).
2004’s Bows + Arrows and 2008’s You & Me still made up the lion’s share of the show, but there was representation from their debut all the way through penultimate LP Lisbon (a personal favorite) and Heaven‘s title track to close the main set. The band’s onstage ability to nail the tones that make those records sound so singular remained an impressive feat, and vocalist Hamilton Leithauser served as an ever-magnetic frontman, in excellent voice and a talkative mood throughout the night. (As he did on stage at BC, Leithauser detailed some of his Boston connections of yore; a friend of his once lived in a since-condemned Brighton Ave apartment, and to hear Hamilton tell it that place was fucked).
In a more heartfelt aside later in the evening, Leithauser remarked that as the tour drew to a close, the band felt shocked that people had filled out venues and remembered them at all after so much time away. In my experience though, folks who like The Walkmen tend to really like The Walkmen. For those of us who never stopped spinning the records in the meantime, it wasn’t so hard to believe.
Opening the show, Rostam and his band unfurled the gentle grooves of the former Vampire Weekender’s solo material (plus Modern Vampires of the City‘s “Young Lion,” for good measure), before Leithauser joined them for a short (and allegedly unrehearsed) set of songs from the pair’s collaborative 2016 LP.
Scroll below for photos from the whole evening, right through to the encore-concluding “We’ve Been Had” in which Leithauser hopped down from the stage and shook hands with the crowd on his way toward strolling straight out the Roadrunner front doors. “He’s going to [beloved Allston dive] the Sil!” alleged one onlooker as he disappeared into the night, which I hope was true.
