Good Flying Birds played Lilypad – 5/3

Indianapolis’ Good Flying Birds made their Greater Boston debut with support from Western Mass post-punks Landowner and San Francisco’s Galore.

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Midwestern quartet Good Flying Birds have been garnering buzz since the release of last year’s Talulah’s Tape, a charmingly ramshackle collection of jangle-pop gems nodding to the heyday of ’90s lo-fi slackerism but maintaining its own distinct melodic identity. It’s a great repeat listen, and, unsurprisingly, a set featuring a whole bunch of those songs sounded great at the Lilypad earlier this month. The band seized on the hookiness of the material and added just enough extra punch to make it really sing in a live format – complete with an audience-participation component in the form of a sort of tambourine jam (see below).

Holyoke’s Landowner released their excellent new LP Assumption in February, and since I had to miss the release show for it, I was glad to see them hop onto this bill and showcase those new tunes just over a month later. As always, the band played it insanely tight and tense with clean tones and the unflinching stage presence of singer Dan Shaw. Increasingly one of my favorite (semi-)local live bands.

Opening things up was west coast quartet Galore, whose dreamy indie-pop added another complementary shade of guitars to the night. Photos from all three sets below.