Editor’s Note: Welcome to V3 Weekend, Vanyaland‘s guide to 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: Vundabar at The Paradise Rock Club
It’s a healthy New Music Friday across the music land, and Boston is well-represented. Homegrown product Vundabar are celebrating the release today (March 7) of new album Surgery and Pleasure, the animated trio’s debut for Loma Vista Recordings (Soccer Mommy, Denzel Curry, Sleater-Kinney). Everything about how Vundabar roll has an authentic, old-school quality to it, and tonight the boys raise a glass to the record with a release party at The Paradise Rock Club. We’ve been hot on this new era for the Scituate-born band since “I Got Cracked” dropped last summer, and now it comes together through their distinctively unique sound of the swirls around post-punk, math-rock, surf-guitar, jangle-pop and grunge scuzz. “Surgery And Pleasure is a more mature synthesis of all the stuff we’ve explored before,” says guitarist and vocalist Brandon Hagen. “In a way it feels like a return. It’s grownup Vundabar.” He adds: “I was thinking of surgery as this process where you’re augmented forever. When things are that extreme it almost simplifies them. It’s so much change, all you can do is accept it.”
VUNDABAR + FANTASY OF A BROKEN HEART + PET FOX :: Saturday, March 7 at Paradise Rock Club, 967 Commonwealth Ave. in Boston, MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, $25 :: Event info :: Advance tickets
Comedy: Matthew Broussard at Roar! Comedy Club
From the desk of Comedy Editor Jason Greenough: As we’ll find across two nights at Roar! Comedy Club this weekend in Springfield, Matthew Broussard wastes very little time and airspace once he hits the stage. Instead, he continues his long-crafted approach of riding with the momentum of the crowd and curating an impressively sharp, quick, and all-around enticing comedy experience that, much like what you can see in his 2024 debut special Hyperbolic, balances smart joke writing with a playful disregard for keeping it in bounds. Never punching down, but certainly not pulling any punches, Broussard’s laughs-per-minute stats are something to be marveled at (read: Quite nutty) as he only continues to fill rooms all over the country to deliver the good word, talk some shit, and give us all a much needed, high-quality laugh.
MATTHEW BROUSSARD :: Friday, March 7 and Saturday, March 8 at Roar! Comedy Club, 1 MGM Way in Springfield, MA :: 8 p.m., $31.70 :: Advance tickets
Film/TV: ‘Made in Massachusetts’ at Somerville Theatre
The bagpipes of “Shipping Up To Boston” are firing up in the distance, and it has nothing to do with St. Patrick’s Day (for now). The sound comes from the Somerville Theatre, which screens Made In Massachusetts this Sunday (March 9), an effort from filmmakers Adam Roffman and Vatche Arabian that brings together the 100-year history of Hollywood East. Here’s the word on this very intriguing project: “Join us for an epic three-plus hour chronological journey through over 200 films and television shows that have filmed in Massachusetts from the 1920s to 2024. Highlighting recognizable locations in Boston, Somerville, Harvard Square, Concord, Gloucester, Martha’s Vineyard, Great Barrington, and everywhere in-between. Featuring hundreds of stars ranging from James Cagney, Tony Curtis, Elizabeth Taylor, and Steve McQueen to Burt Reynolds, Cher, Harrison Ford, Nicole Kidman, all the Wahlbergs and Afflecks that you can handle, and many, many more.” Roffman and Arabian will be on-hand for a Q&A after the screening, and while admission is free and no tickets are required, donations to help support the Independent Film Festival Boston are welcome
‘MADE IN MASSACHUSETTS’ :: Sunday, March 9 at Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square in Somerville, MA :: 1 p.m., free admission :: Event info