Even before VIAL played a single note at Brooklyn’s Sultan Room on Sunday night (4/21), you knew you were in for something special. The Minneapolis punk trio took the stage, grabbed their instruments, let some feedback ring out, and they just looked like a ticking bomb ready to go off. When they launched into burnout opener “two-faced,” that’s exactly what happened. Nobody stands still on stage or off at a VIAL show, the band looked and sounded like total stars, and they were as loud and punk and brash as a band like this should be. There were multiple times in the set where they just let out wordless screams and encouraged the crowd to do the same. It was total catharsis.
VIAL also seem like actual great friends having an actual great time on stage, and their set combined the energy of a punk show with the euphoric high of spending a whole weekend with your closest friend group. It’s a reminder that joy and anger can actually go together really well.
The trio played every song on burnout, a handful of favorites from their first two albums, and covers of Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings” and Metric’s “Black Sheep,” and their own songs felt as much like classic hits as the covers did. You can picture anthems like “falling short” and “just fine” being played to massive crowds at Woodstock ’94 or an early Lollapalooza lineup, and it’s pretty special to experience that feeling up close and personal in a small Brooklyn club in 2024. VIAL know how to write songs that beg to be shouted along to, and the crowd at Sultan Room came ready to do exactly that.
This leg of the tour is with support from Boy Jr, who put on a set of theatrical DIY pop (cover of My Chemical Romance’s “Teenagers” included) that found them singing and dancing over laptop backing tracks and a live drummer. There was also local support from Jet Daisy. Pictures of all three acts by Amanda Hatfield continue below.
For more VIAL, listen to our recent podcast episode with guitarist KT Branscom and drummer Katie Fischer:
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