Circus Trees sway in the three-ring breeze at The 4th Wall on Saturday, 24 April 2024.

Man Must Explore and Bugslam open in Theatre 2 at the Capitol Theatre.

Indivisual Video in the house.

In recent weeks police raids at multiple local universities have squashed peaceful protests by students against the genocide in Palestine. There are bumps, bruises, and mass arrests. The former will heal. The latter is an embarrassment for Boston’s Mayor Wu, the would-be progressive hope, who signed off on the strongarm tactics at Emerson College and Northeastern University.

This is the part of the analysis where you write that excessive, reactionary measures like these will have a “chilling effect” on democracy, free speech, and the right to peaceful protest. But we’re past that point, aren’t we? The chill has sunk in, and the ice is so thick that Wu & Company can strap on their hockey skates and go slap the puck around.

As of writing this the peaceful student encampments are carrying on at MIT, Tufts University, and Harvard University. Will the authorities learn from their mistakes, as violent images recorded at the previous police raids proliferate across the country?

Critics from the outside looking in can stop crying their crocodile tears about the supposed disruption to university life that these protests represent. The students aren’t having it. The vast majority of the faculty aren’t having it. The ones making the most noise represent private interests, either political, financial, or both, beyond campus life, along with a bloated academic administrative class put in place to serve those interests firmly embedded in the “public/private partnership” that is the current degraded state of higher education.

Students and faculty don’t need outside approval to have a conversation, in words and actions, about what is happening in Gaza. And if you’re more worried about students camping out on a grassy field than the genocidal turn of world events that compels them to take a stand, then you are truly lost, and in need of a long timeout from opining on developments in public life until you come back to your moral and intellectual senses.

Here’s an idea: drop all charges against the students pitching a tent in a peaceful protest against genocide.

Hump Nights

Nov 30

WORM | Presidential Disgrace | Screw Cart | Neponset Monastary

Dec 3

ONCE Presents: Ezra Furman Doing What She Wants

Dec 4

The Ladybug Transistor / Lightheaded / Mark Robinson (of Cotton Candy)

Dec 7

The Lotusheads / The Dead Flowers / Music Farm / The Pretty Fears

Dec 13

The 4th Wall: Nectarine Girl, Special Guest, Exit 18, Wulfer

Dec 13

Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket / Funk Safari

Dec 14

ONCE Presents: Scream Along Blue Xmas w/ Billy Hough

$Fat Togue Holiday Bash: Give Up!, Love City Dirt, BAD\\VERB$

Dec 16

Fat Togue Holiday Bash: Give Up!, Love City Dirt, BAD\\VERB

Dec 26

Bohemian Rhapsody Sing-Along

Dec 31

Bohemian Rhapsody Sing-Along

Indie rock from Amherst. It’s Bugslam. West Mass is the best Mass… A bouncy heavy pop four-piece. The kind of band that trades around the vocal duties, though the closer might catch you by surprise – a kind of doom pop ditty with a vocal duet between one of the guitarists and the bassist. DoooommmPop!

Another band from upstate New York. It’s Man Must Explore. The 4th Wall is establishing a real pipeline from there to here. The Snorts comes from those parts. Safety Meeting comes from those parts. And they both played earlier showcases. Upstate New York 4 Lyfe. The four-piece band MME was straight ahead rock n roll, with the riffs, and licks, and fills, and hollering. Bring the whole family.

At some point – and maybe it’s this point – you stop remarking on the “tender age” of the songwriting core of Circus Trees, and you just write a straight review. As straight as they ever get written here… Because they’ve been gigging in the area for a while, club dates and fests, and the band members are about the same age as any young musician is who feels like writing, singing, performing some version of rock n roll in 2024.

So how about that straight review? The band rolls in with a roadie crew, family members, likely. Enjoy it while it lasts! If the various tinkering pre-set threw a monkey wrench into the forward momentum of the night, it paid dividends on the backend with superb sound.

The lead vocalist has a penchant for epic rock balladry, and she can dial her voice up and down, inside and out, to hit the precise emotional timbre needed to sell a lyric.

A standout performance of “Save Yourself” showcased the voice. But you might have walked away most impressed by the instrumental cohesion of the three-piece, which poked and prodded the track, hinting at a climax that never came. Anyone, including Nigel Tufnel, can dial it up to 11. But it’s a real sign of musical maturity and chops to hold off the obvious crescendo until the final moment. Or no moment at all!