Editor’s Note: Welcome to V3 Weekend, a new Vanyaland series where we help you sort out your weekend entertainment with curated selections and recommendations across our three pillars of Music, Comedy, and Film/TV. It’s what you should know about, where you need to be, and where you’ll be going, with us riding shotgun along the way.
Music: Nation of Language at Brighton Music Hall
It seemed like every time we tuned into WZBC’s always-essential weekly radio show Virtual Detention over the past several months and heard a song that made us stop whatever it was we were doing, it was by Nation of Language. Tonight (March 4) at Brighton Music Hall, we get to hear those songs in glorious live action, as the Brooklyn post-punk and synth-pop band bring last year’s acclaimed sophomore album A Way Forward to Allston.
We got a taste of Nation of Language’s live experience in January when the group played “Across That Fine Line” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Watch that clip below.
“‘Across That Fine Line’ is a reflection on that moment when a non-romantic relationship flips into something different,” says songwriter/vocalist Ian Devaney. “When the air in the room suddenly feels like it changes in an undefinable way. It’s a kind of celebration of that certain joyous panic, and the uncertainty that surfaces right after it. Sonically, it’s meant to feel like running down a hill, just out of control. I had been listening to a lot of Thee Oh Sees at the time of writing it and admiring the way they supercharge Krautrock rhythms and imbue them with a kind of mania, which felt like an appropriate vibe to work with and make our own.”
Friday night in Allston awaits.
Comedy: Tim Dillon at The Wilbur
We tipped everyone off to it earlier in the week, and here comes your glowing reminder: Tim Dillon is back at The Wilbur for a pair of just-announced shows on Saturday (March 5), and time’s running out to get tickets. There are like a dozen tickets left for the 7 p.m. show as of press time, and only balcony seats remain for the freshly-added 9:45 p.m. gig. As Film Editor Jason Greenough writes this week: “The surprise engagement will mark Dillon’s second trip to Tremont Street in less than a year after he employed his blunt and unapologetic brand of stand-up to re-open the venue last July after a 16-month shutdown due to the pandemic.”
Greenough adds: “Since his last trip to Boston, Dillon’s loyal and vocal following has only grown as he has taken to social media and The Tim Dillon Show podcast to voice his discontent with topics of the day, as well as many factions of society and pop culture. We can only assume that the arsenal of scorching hot takes and jokes that he has polished over the last eight months has only gotten more potent, so this one-night-only shindig is sure to be a night comedy fans in the city won’t soon forget.”
Film/TV: The Batman
He put the “goth” in Gotham City, and now he’s putting hype back into Batman. One of those accomplishments seems greater than the other, but we will say this about Robert Pattinson’s turn as Bruce Wayne: It’s been cool to see public reception of The Batman go from skeptical curiosity and meme generator to one of actual intrigue and adulation.
The world may not need another superhero movie, but this feels like something else entirely, even with its 176-minute runtime, and Vanyaland film editor Nick Johnston raves about The Batman in this week’s spoiler-free review: “I pity the folks who won’t be able to see The Batman for what it is — an honest-to-God blockbuster, as we used to know them — thanks to descriptors like ‘brooding’ or whatever, but, at least in my eyes, it’s the kind of superhero movie that, along with something like Spider-Verse, should be the standard-bearer for the genre going forward.”
Grab that awesomely awkward popcorn vessel and rappel down to the closest theater nearby.