Pollyanna at House of Independents 7/8/22
Friday night in Asbury Park, Pollyanna headlined a five-band show at the House of Independents to celebrate the release of their new album, Slime. I thought it might be fun to support a local, New Jersey based punk band, and listened to a few of their tracks to see if a drive to Asbury Park would be better than a 50–50 proposition. Not bad, and I always tip the scale a bit just because it will be live, and loud, and better.
Here are the tracks that I thought would make the trip worthwhile:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3mmryROSpcGzUYgSLxJet9?si=xPhV9_AlSVuTXtwiDqvnOw
The show also featured a local rock band Range Life, emo-punksters Fox Teeth, a bouncy singer Jhariah, and in-your-face loud and proud rockers Latewaves. Each of these groups seemed to have their own entourage and fan base in the crowd, which made for a petty interesting mix of LGBTQ2S+ types, aging bikers, and me. Just another night in Asbury Park, where I’ve totally given up on telling the girls from the guys from the others.
But the music was overall pretty good. I hadn’t bargained on five bands, so I probably shouldn’t have skipped my 3pm nap, but I was glad I made the trip.
Each of the warm-up bands had something unique to offer up, and all kept it brief, kept it moving, and were each there to lend support in their own way to Pollyanna, the stars of the night.
I was really impressed with Latewaves, the trio of rockers from Asbury Park. Here’s a sampler of some of their best stuff:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4AecV4gELSMXHpWjxHgELw?si=zCFgrV6xRHaTgOct9dRz0w
Pollyanna didn’t disappoint. Jill Beckett, lead guitarist and vocalist, fronts for the four-piece band. She reminds me a bit of Brode Dalle from The Distillers (whose t-shirt I had carefully selected for the evening), but with short-cropped bright orange hair. She’s clearly the cheerleader of the group, stoking up the crowd to dance, mosh it up, and otherwise get crazy. She gives the band a fair bit of range: heavy on grunge/punk, but with a solid dose of power pop. And her solo, acoustic rendering of “Pathetic” which she wrote during the pandemic, was beautiful and mellow.
All in all, a great night for some of New Jersey’s musical up-and-comers.