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Aided by a new record deal with Don Giovanni, the October release of debut album Common Blah, and a fall tour that takes them from Allston to Paris and back again, Weakened Friends are literally everywhere. So it’s only fitting that they go Live From Nowhere, as well.
The Portland guitar-rock trio recently teamed up with the video production team for a live session out somewhere in an old abandoned brewery in Massachusetts, recording a stripped down version of “Blue Again.” While we are not surprised it sounds so good, we are surprised that an abandoned brewery actually exists in 2018.
“Before the brewery shut down it was a hub of activity,” says Live From Nowhere’s Emily Graham-Handley. “In addition to the giant vats and bar areas there was a boxing ring and vintage motorcycle collection. Old documents lay on long-defunct conveyor belts. The building was a labyrinth of clues about it’s former life.” Live From Nowhere co-conspirator Nico Rivers continues: “This building is just one of many possessions belonging to a top-notch collector. Each floor of the building seemed to have a different theme — a brewery on this floor, old juke boxes and records on this floor, arcade games in this room and on and on. It was a beautiful scene preserved like a dusty, smelly time capsule.”
Weakened Friends are going to be many places over the next few months, including Paris’ Pitchfork Fest next month and at Allston’s Great Scott on November 15, but none of the stops on their fall tour are likely to be like this. The group lugged their gear up four flights of stairs to get into the space, which was marked by broken bottles and what’s being described as “orange sludge.”
Bassist Annie Hoffman describes the space as “absolutely surreal,” adding: “It wasn’t just a vacant building that had once housed a brewery, everything was still there! Equipment, paperwork and schedules, ingredients, kegs and bottles. It was as if the employees had just vanished into thin air in the middle of a work day. Being in that space was fascinating and, at the same time, a bit sad and sobering — for lack of a better term. Playing music there felt like performing in a time capsule. It was a really unique experience!”
Check out the clip below, and note this isn’t Live From Nowhere’s first rodeo around vacant spaces. In the past we’ve hyped sessions of theirs like Kate Diaz performing in an abandoned bear cage; Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys dancing in the shadows of an old theater; and Air Traffic Controller taking aim in a lost hunting lodge. They’re all worth a watch.
Featured image courtesy of Live From Nowhere.