Grass is Green at the Armory
Graphic by Sofia Giarrusso
by Nathan Hilyard
Two cream-colored turrets rise up from Somerville’s semi-urban sprawl and into the night sky. Stationed between salons, falafel shops, and Massachusett homes, the Armory stands as an architectural oddity and a haven for Boston’s music scene as it was once a haven for the Somerville Light Infantry of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. Nowadays, Massachusetts doesn’t have a volunteer militia (at least I haven’t been invited), but it does have a pulsing ecosystem of local bands and touring acts that filter through the Armory’s gorgeous front doors, filling its hallowed halls not with puffs of gunpowder, but rather half-drank cans of Narragansett and scuffed Blundstones.
A nostalgic line up took the stage at the Armory this past Friday night. I came to the show in anticipation of an all-time favorite, Grass is Green, finally reuniting on stage after their last-minute drop from Nice, A Fest last summer. They shared the bill with old friends Speedy Ortiz and Pile, along with new talent Mingko starting things strong with hits from their newest EP, Thumb.
Traveling all the way home to Boston from their current seat in Philadelphia, Speedy Ortiz ripped off into their pop-punk amalgam, leader Sadie Dupuis’ saccharine soprano cutting through the jangly fuzz of “Scabs” and “No Below.” As she sipped from a bedazzled Stanley cup between tunes, Dupuis asked the crowd to cheer if they saw this lineup of bands play in a basement in 2012. In a joyful chorus, a majority of the crowd lit up. Standing right near the stage and having been a shocking eight years of age in 2012, I seemed quite the poser. Yet Dupuis' anecdote colored the evening as a reunion of Boston’s best. These bands grew up playing alongside one another and created the local scene we ignorant kids enjoy so much today. As a music-obsessed college student jumping at any chance to mosh in an Allston basement, I knew this show was a chance to study up, respect my elders, and hear some damn good music.
By the time Grass is Green took the stage I had wedgied myself right in that ear-splitting spot beside the stage. Quick to set up and sparsely spread out on stage, the band pivoted from the usual plunks of tuning guitars right into the geometric, mathematical rhythms of their opener. Lead vocalist and guitarist Andy Chervenak was a clean ten yards from the rest of the group, leaving nothing but bare stage and amp cords in the space between. The quartet’s first few songs made it apparent that the ten-year break hasn’t left a spot of rust on their guitar strings. Chervenak’s playing was crisp, pissed-off, and passionate. With a band like that behind him, the group reached a mythic state of flow.
A Grass is Green song is punctuated, charismatic, and blunt. The between-song chatter was minimal, but Chervenak alluded to beloved friends and inhabitants of the Boston scene, calling back to the good ol’ days and using each song as a vehicle to a memory. “This one’s about smoking weed with your buddies,” he began, and though we’ll never exactly know the memories which birthed such a rocking catalog of songs, the recklessness and fun of making music with your friend is bottled up and blasted back to us, ten years later.
Red light pulsed off the group as they rocked through a catalog of highlights. “You’re Yawning All Over My Baby” screamed off in a jangle of right angles and “Sammy So-sick” ran off angsty with the tension of running a red light. The fug of screeching guitars dropped off in a crisp break, leaving behind an unshakable quartet of players, moving both as individuals and as one, only for Chervenak to scatter off to another riff and take the sound searing back to pace.
As the set came to a close I was glossy-eyed with wonder for these elders who once filled this wonderful city with their music. As the euphoric, stadium-sized riffs of “Big Dog Tee Shirt Birthday Weekend” filled the old Armory, I mourned being a wimpy eight-year-old when these bands were first hitting the scene. “You can never let it go,” Chervenak pleaded over a jigsaw of riffs, “You can never let it go.”
It’s hard not to leave with gratitude after a show like that. Because there’s such a bulk of college students in Boston, sometimes the scene feels a bit undercooked, the real talent shipping off to Philly or New York as soon as their four years are up, but thankfully bands like Grass is Green are left behind as reminders of what power these scenes hold. These bands have reunited to show us youngins how it’s done. And one day, after the baby’s been rocked to sleep and the dishes are all washed, I’ll crack open a Narragansett and press play on some old favorites. Maybe by then the Armory will be but a pile of dust and the city of Boston consumed by a sinkhole, but I can sure guarantee the music’ll bring me right back to being twenty something, moshing with my friends, not a care in the world.