By Alex LaRosa:
On Wednesday night’s WERS Discovery Show, Chicago-based rockers Twin Peaks rocked hard, delivering a show that was wild, rowdy, uncontrollably fun. The five-piece group torched through their hour-long set, jumping around the stage, yelling their lyrics, and feeding off the crowd’s relentless energy.
The first act of the night, Jimmy Whispers, set the anything-goes attitude for the night. Whispers, dressed in drag, performed a small set of 6 ridiculous tunes, which he called “sing-a-ling-a-ding-dongs,” and by the end of the show, he had lost most of his clothing—as well as any sense of dignity.
The second opening act, Ne-Hi, hit the stage at 9:00 and gave a much better taste of what was to come.
The indie rock quartet from Chicago greeted fans with a “Howdy!” and then let the music do the talking, hardly pausing at all during their 35-minute set. Nine energetic songs later, they departed, and it was Twin Peaks’ turn to shine.
Hitting the stage right at 10:00, Twin Peaks wasted no time showing how happy they were to be there. With smiles on their faces, the band started things off with a small drum solo, and then kicked off what would become a wild 12-song set. Only two songs into the night, the drummer Connor Brodner has already worked up a visible sweat as he pounded the kit without mercy. Meanwhile, guitarist and vocalist Cadien Lake James shook his mane of hair vigorously whenever he wasn’t up against the microphone.
The party-hard mood was helped by a story that guitarist and vocalist Clay Frankel told early on about sneaking in drinks at a previous show at the Sinclair, back when they were underage. “Now we’re legal, baby!” he yelled, receiving much applause from the crowd.
It wasn’t long before the crowd descended into pure rock’n’roll-fueled madness, with the formation of what appeared to be a moshpit-like atmosphere. By the end of the show, at least a dozen different crowd surfers had worked their way across the room, many of whom ended up on stage and had to be removed by security. This happened so frequently that Frankel asked jokingly, “Where do they keep taking all those dudes? Is there some room?” After pondering the question a bit more, he determined that they were probably backstage drinking the band’s supply of beer.
Over the course of the show, the band members gradually threw various things into the crowd, including the drummer’s sticks. A disapproving Frankel quipped, “If you’re going to throw something, throw some {expletive} drugs!”
Halfway through the show, the band joked about a “Chicago takeover,” seeing as all three acts hailed from the Windy City. But in a play to the home crowd, Frankel quickly banged out the first few notes of the Standells’ classic “Dirty Water,” which was very warmly received by his audience.
By the end of the show, the band was still in top form, even navigating tempo changes seamlessly. They took a brief break after twelve songs to leave the stage, but returned for a wild two-song encore. Somehow in that short period of time, Frankel had lost his shirt, but undoubtedly the adoring audience did not mind at all. During the last two songs, multiple crowd surfers reached the stage, one even managing to stroke the bassist Jack Dolan’s hair before diving back into the madness that had seized the venue.
It was clear all night that Twin Peaks was here to party, and without a doubt, they partied as hard as they could. With the volume and energy turned up, they rocked the Sinclair and gave it their all, leaving nothing to be desired except the hope that they might return to Boston soon and do it all over again.
