By Roman Aguilar
On October 20th, I saw indie-rock band Slow Pulp halfway through the U.S. portion of their 2023 World Tour during a sold-out show at the Voodoo Room, in the House of Blues. I became a fan of Slow Pulp in 2018 back in middle school, so going into the night, I was anticipating an exhilarating performance.
Indie-rock band Babehoven opened the night at 8 p.m. and featured luscious vocals and ambient calming sounds. Lead singer Maya Bon had the entire crowd slowly swaying to the country folk-like vocal inflections of Bon, that perfectly captured the sound of a slow-burn type of love. The band’s short set was mostly comprised of songs from their 2022 album, “Light Moving Time.” One of which was a song entitled “I’m On Your Team” that began with her lone vocal before the tempo and the rest of the band filled in to a beautiful melodic ending. By the time Slow Pulp was to come on next, the crowd was in suspense.
Slow Pulp has been around the indie scene for the past couple of years now with many of their more popular songs being “Falling Apart” and “High”. Members of the band, Teddy Mattews, Alex Leeds, and Henry Stoehr grew up as childhood friends before forming a band of their own, with lead singer Emily Massey joining the group on their second EP, appropriately titled EP2. Since then, they’ve released two more EPs and two albums, with their most recent album being 2023’s “Yard” released this September, and has been praised for its dreamy melodicism and alt-rock grit. The album has propelled the band to embark on a world tour that started its journey from Wisconsin on October 4th, and will see its run continue into England and end its tour in Germany in early December.
Applause erupted as the band walked on stage and got settled in before starting the night’s set with “Slugs,” a song featured from their recent album. The song is about falling in love in the summertime, and during the band’s performance, distorted guitars and light vocals perfectly encapsulated that feeling. Later in the set, Massey brought out Bon from Babehoven on a duet performance of one of Pulp’s bigger songs “Falling Apart.” Both female leads had incredible vocal chemistry that was a welcome addition to the live showing of the song.
Massey interacted with fans throughout the night, making various jokes before the band got into the next song. Massey yelled out to the crowd, “Who’s on their period?” followed by an unusual number of attendees cheering on to which the lead singer laughed while saying she’s never seen so many people cheer for being on their period. The band then transitioned into the song, “Cramps,” with a heavier alt-rock sound than most of the other songs of the night. Massey’s unadorned vocals add a layer to perfectly match the band’s upright playing.
On their encore, Slow Pulp returned only mere minutes after the end of their initial set with a performance of their biggest hit “High” before transitioning into the more folk and stripped down “Montana” where Massey pulled out a harmonica and moved the song into a slow steady progression. By the end of the night, the crowd was left mesmerized with a memorable performance from Massey and the rest of the band that proved their music better live and a must see for fans. I’m excited to see what lays ahead for the band and where they take their music following their album release.