Editor’s Note: Welcome to our new series spotlighting the bands and artists playing this year’s NICE, a fest. With 49 live performances over three days and two venues — July 28 to 30 at Somerville’s Crystal Ballroom and The Rockwell — there’s a lot going on, but consider this your compass to the NICE-est weekend imaginable. Get ticket info here, and check out our continued coverage of the festival.
twen
When and Where: Saturday, July 30 at 4 p.m. at The Crystal Ballroom.
Band Bio: Post-pandemic, Twen is an “absolutely scorched” rock-band rising from the ashes of two years of canceled tours and broken ties to all music-industry execs. Ambitions were high for the Nashville indie-hopefuls with a record-deal, two European tours completed and a North American run scheduled in 2020. Now off-the-grid, the duo lives in a pandemic-built, self-converted van circling around their 3 Nashville bandmates; self-producing and releasing their next body of music with a D.I.Y. ethos and a fuck-you attitude.
Though Twen got their start in Boston’s DIY scene in 2016, their sound was less rough-edged indie or punk and more hard-edged pop with jangly tendencies. Fueled by an irrational urge to craft songs with no lyrics, the four-piece rock-band toured America & Canada for three years with no recorded music, except for a live-demo recorded from their first show in a Boston basement.
After moving to Nashville in 2017 and landing a rosy record deal with Frenchkiss Records, the band led by Jane Fitzsimmons and Ian Jones released their first LP, Awestruck in 2019; a polished version of their live set. Now, in the wake of their deflated-debut, the band’s hungry attitude and elevated songwriting proves you can do it yourself.
Fun Fact: “Jane & Ian’s first gig together (playing in a different band) was at All Asia in [Cambridge] in 2012.”
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