Destroy Boys at Theater of Living Arts in Philadelphia
American punk rock band, Destroy Boys always deliver exactly what’s expected of them; they create the perfect balance between moshing and the release of teenage angst with respecting one another and making sure everyone feels safe. For the second date of their September tour, Destroy Boys were joined by Jigsaw Youth, Softcult and Pinkshift. General take aways for the night: “Let’s get sweaty” and “you should fucking respect people!”
The night of head banging, moshing and crowd surfing was kicked off by Staten Island based punk/grunge band Jigsaw Youth, consisting of Maria Alvarez on bass and vocals, Natasha Beck on guitar and Alex Dmytrow on drums. The all female group wasted no time getting the audience riled up for the evening playing their various singles, including ‘Smother,’ and a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Milk It.’ An unexplained moment that got the crowd cheering was Alvarez donning a bright red ski mask halfway through their set.
To give the audience a chance to get their energy backup, indie-grunge duo Softcult provided a break from moshing without loosing anyone’s attention. The dreampop sisters Phoenix and Mercedes Arn-Horn were a noticeable shift from Jigsaw Youth as they played track from their EPs, “Year of The Rate” and Year of The Snake,” but they had the crowd swaying and shoegazing along with them.
The last opener, Pinkshift, was more alined with the punk vibes concert goers had anticipated for the evening with a mix of punk rock, grunge and post-hardcore. Started in 2018 out of Baltimore, singer Ashrita Kumar, guitarist Paul Vallejo and drummer Myron Houngbedji made use of every inch of the stage as they jumped around and screamed with the audience. As the drums began to build for their second to last song, Kumar told everyone they better go crazy or they would tell their therapist about it, jumping into ‘i’m gonna tell my therapist on you’ as the mosh pit went wild.
To start the chaos that was about to be their set, Destroy Boys took the stage dancing to ‘Cbat’ by Hudson Mohawke (ifykyk). With no explanation of their entrance song, the band jumped straight into ‘Crybaby’ and the crowd immediately got into it with head banging all along the barrier and a mosh pit beginning to form in the middle of the room. A majority of their setlist consisted of tracks from their newest album “Open Mouth, Open Heart” but they also played songs from their two previous albums for the day one fans. As they prepared to play their most popular track,’I Threw Glass at My Friend’s Eyes and Now I’m on Probation,’ guitarist and singer Violet Mayugba requested that all phones bet away for this song as it holds a lot of importance to the band and many people in the audience, adding that “it’s not a demand so you can do what you want but it is my request.” With phones out of sight, many fans took this opportunity to crowd surf over the barrier, one person seemed to go around at least three times. The band closed out their set with their 2020 single “Fences” but the audience demanded an encore as they chanted “We want more… please.” The band returned, minus singer and guitarist Alexa Roditis, for four more songs. The trio joked around that they were coming up with new songs on the spot while jamming on stage, as they performed covers of GreenDay, Blink-182 and Weezer before ending the night by playing ‘Muzzle’ for the second time
Check out more photos from the show on our Instagram (photo credit: Kate Atkinson) and look out for our interview with Violet Mayugba and drummer Narsai Malik coming soon.
