If a band plays a large venue and no one stands, is it still a rock show?
In Boston, the question hardly comes up, as most venues in the area don’t have seats, and gigs at The Orphuem and Agganis are relatively scarce. Everyone know that you sit for acoustic-type-softboy serenades and stand for the raucous stuff in an attempt to dance in your one square foot of personal concert space — it’s an instinct ingrained deep into person’s natural reflexes.
For City and Colour frontman Dallas Green, a musician decidedly rooted in the downhearted, the verdict of his “rockability” shifted to the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion crowd last night (June 8) — or, more specifically, to a painfully drunk and stubborn dude who was tired of getting side-eye for being the only person on his feet.
“I paid for this seat and I’m gonna stand ALL NIGHT,” the man said, beer can in hand. “I’m sorry everybody sitting…HO-LY SHIT!”
It was loud enough to echo up to Green, who clapped back on cue.
“Remember that whole fucking line about trying to be nice to each other?” he retorted, referencing an earlier comment he had made about generic love and kindness.
The reaction to our inebriated hero was a sudden wave of people standing, and of course, once a few rows get off their duffs, then everyone else has to if they want to see any semblance of what’s going on. From then on it was a rock show, complete with banshee-like fangirls and swaggering bros, although Green was putting down tunes that were never meant to be picked up as ragers.
The last time City and Colour were in town, they were playing to an even bigger crowd at City Hall Plaza’s Boston Calling in 2016, a now faded and distant memory since the new Allston installation of the music festival this year. But there’s a reason Boston Calling slated them for the outdoor festival.
City and Colour, while tiptoeing between Ontario-bred folk and profoundly sad indie rock, is namely a summer band — it’s how Green can sneak in a tour without any new material whatsoever and still pack a venue. The group weaves music that ebbs and flows, rather than ricochets off walls, making the tent at the Pavilion an ideal place to let the tunes recede into the sea. And when Green tells a sob story like “If I Should Go Before You,” he draws it out, stretching the chords and cathartic details like putty for peak right-in-the-feels gut punches.
To all those downtrodden offerings, the crowd reacted in some bizarro alternate universe fashion. There are only so many spilled beers and fries and ill-timed sloppy makeout sessions that can make sense in this kind of environment, and far too much of that frat boy behavior unraveled last night as Green was doing his own earnest unraveling of personal and sordid woes.
Picture chugging a Jagerbomb and fist-pumping during a Mitski concert — not only is that reaction rude, its fucking backwards. Mitski would also probably clock you with her bass for it. Last night’s gig at the Pavilion confronted the same equation, although admittedly, the disconnect with so much of the crowd was no fault of Green, who presented himself and his catalogue as authentically as ever.
“Since we’re having such a good time, I’m going to sing a song about dying,” the singer said before plowing into unprecedentedly depressing territory on “Body in a Box.” And as Green painted a morbid but thought-provoking picture — “it’s like a man’s best party only happens when he dies” — the slovenly antics continued.
Every time the lights so much as changed color, fans reeled with ecstasy, regardless of whatever Green happened to be baring his soul about. It became a game of guessing which tear-jerking lyric would move the crowd into either a stupor or sympathy.
“And I’m slowly sinking/Into the slough of despond” on “Northern Wind?”
“So there goes my life/With every passing exit sign” on “Hello, I’m in Delaware?”
“I am warm enough/Yet I still shiver/I am fed/But I still starve” on “Lover Come Back?”
No matter how Green framed it, no matter how much the lights soberly glimmered on his acoustic guitar, his critically-acclaimed depth wasn’t resonating with the slew of party animals. The fact that all the dejected subject matter could arouse and sustain poorly-maneuvered grinding is equal parts impressive and unfathomable.
There were exceptions, of course; “Fragile Bird” and “Wasted Love” offered sprightly, upbeat moments where the madness came full circle and wasn’t totally uncalled for. In fact, “Wasted Love,” the second song of the night, delightfully skirted the sorrow and amped up the crowd for a night of ignoring thoroughly stimulating music.
It was the only time that the aforementioned dry-humping made any goddamn sense.
Follow Victoria Wasylak on Twitter @VickiWasylak.