Wax Bodega labelmates Arm’s Length, Carly Cosgrove, and Ben Quad began the Wax Bodega Tour in March with fellow emo fifth-wavers Saturdays At Your Place, and the tour landed in Brooklyn on 4/20. Ben Quad unfortunately had to drop off the remainder of the tour the morning of the Brooklyn show due to a family emergency, but the show otherwise went off without a hitch and all three bands dedicated songs to Ben Quad and talked on stage about how great the tour had been with them on it.
The Brooklyn show was originally scheduled to happen at Meadows, but after it quickly sold out, it was moved next door to the much larger Brooklyn Monarch, and it was clear during Arm’s Length’s headlining set that they were blown away by the turnout of roughly 1,000 people. The Canadian band mentioned on stage that it was their first headlining show in NYC ever, and it’s no exaggeration to say this was an epic way to make your NYC headlining debut. They’ve only been around for about five years but they sounded like seasoned veterans, with a soaring, hard-hitting take on emo and post-hardcore and an extremely tight live show. They played almost all of their 2022 debut full-length Never Before Seen, Never Again Found and a few earlier cuts, and I don’t think there was a single song that the crowd wasn’t audibly singing every word to. People were moving around and launching themselves off the stage, and you could just tell you were seeing a great, rising band on the cusp of something that’s about to be even bigger and better. Especially with their “An Introduction the Album”-esque album/show opener “Overture,” Hotelier comparisons are easy to make, and seeing this band in 2024 felt a lot like seeing that band coming up 10 years ago.
Carly Cosgrove provided direct support and it was just as packed and full of singalongs for them. They were also super tight, and they brought a much different approach to emo than Arm’s Length. If I’m sticking to class of 2014 comparisons, they’re a little more on the quirky, nasally, Modern Baseball-ish side of things, and they do it really, really well. Saturdays At Your Place were a little looser and scrappier, but they’ve clearly already got the songs (“tarot cards” and “future” were big singalongs) and their energy is pretty contagious. They also had a special treat in store when they brought out Carpool singer Stoph Colasanto to sing with them (and then stage dive) at the end of “it’s always cloudy in kalamazoo.”
Saturdays At Your Place and Carpool will meet again when their tour supporting Prince Daddy & the Hyena begins in June. That tour also has Riley! (who coincidentally released their very fun new album Keep Your Cool one day before the Wax Bodega show at Monarch) and it hits NYC on July 11 at Brooklyn Made.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6CwL5TN91L/
Arm’s Length @ Brooklyn Monarch – 4/20/24 Setlist (via)
Overture
Object Permanence
In Loving Memory
Formative Age
Aries (Moth Song)
Up In Smoke
Playing Mercy
Muscle Memory
Safer Skin
Everything As I Knew It
Tough Love
Watercolour
Garamond
Dirge
Carly Cosgrove @ Brooklyn Monarch – 4/20/24 Setlist (via)
Munck
Buttersock
Don’t Lick The Swingset
Headaches
You Old Dog
The Great Doheny
You Ate My Enchilada!
Really Big Shrimp
Not My Job