HINDS trash the Yankees at Brighton Music Hall on Monday, 28 October 2024.

The Happy Return slams the Lakers in the opening slot.

Some nights you walk into a club to hear music and there are about a half dozen other things happening inside to pull your focus from the stage. So it was at Brighton Music Hall in Allston on October 28.

The garage rock headliner Hinds had no idea that the emotional axis of their show was going to be tilted, at least for a moment, on the news of the death of Steve Morse, longtime local music critic. If you want to bring the easy, breezy vibe of a live performance to a screeching halt, get on the PA for a funerary announcement.

That’s OK. Life happens, and death happens too. Mark Kates (or DJ Carbo, as you like), of Fenway Recordings, hit the pause button on celebrating 20 years of the concert series (there was free cake!) to toast the memory of the prolific critic, who reviewed music at the Globe for many years, penned a heroic number of bylines, met & mingled with stars.

Morse will be remembered as a kind, grounded, approachable guy, who pursued his calling with insight and integrity.

I met him a few times in clubs around Cambridge. Morse remained a gig junkie into retirement. He was especially fond of the Lizard Lounge. My most vivid memory of the critic will be that of a tall man, hunched beneath a low ceiling, bathed in the red light, whose increasingly crepuscular range of motion could not mask the boyish glee that possessed him each and every time a new act took the stage.

The memorial toast at Brighton Music Hall came during a break between acts. Half the room listened, the other half tuned it out. Not a bad percentage for a noisy club.

Popular music, to which Morse dedicated his professional life, is a mad carousel with all kinds of unserious people seriously trying to grab the golden ring. Musicians, writers, producers, photographers, agents, engineers, bookers, club owners, and executive types of all shades. If you last more than a few spins of the wheel, there’s a good chance you grow a little glum.

Steve Morse lasted five decades with a pen in hand, and he never lost his love of the art. I’ll drink to that.

Openers The Happy Return performed a fun and frisky set of southern California post punkery. Melodic heavy pop bangers tossed off with Skate Or Die elan.

The fronter fumbled some passive aggressive stage banter in which he told the crowd that he doesn’t understand why “everyone hates the Celtics.” Wisdom accrued during the tour on the road of life. Is it true?

Judging from national basketball coverage, it’s more accurate to say that fans and critics outside of New England underrate the Celtics relative to other teams. See the pre-season Knicks hype, for example, followed by the Celtics demolition of the New York squad in the first game of the season.

On the other hand, defending NBA champions or not, the Celtics just dropped a game to the Pacers, so it’s not like they’re some obnoxious, world-beating overpaid, spoiled all-star club. They’re just really fucking good.

When the crowd exhibited a lukewarm response to the fronter’s Celtics theory, he tried to win them back by professing his hatred for the Los Angeles Lakers. Are Celtics fans supposed to hate the Lakers?

I don’t know. You kind of feel sorry for them with all that dumb Lebron/Bronny bullshit to wade through all season. And it’s kind of lame high school-level shit to try to win people’s favor by trying to bond over supposedly shared objects of contempt. Fumbled stage banter is minor shit, though, and you mostly just write it off, unless the performer is having some sort of racist public meltdown.

Good band. A kind of an Aughtsy indie rock chirp to the songs. The four-piece included two brothers, one on guitar and the other on drums. When it came time to harmonize vocals, it was the two brother who leaned into their mics.

You can imagine how this band came into being. Two brothers, a drummer and guitarist, making racket in the basement until they got their shit together enough to write some songs and recruit a full band. But when push comes to shove, when rhythm and melody have to walk the tightest tightrope to make the song sing, it’s still that pair of brothers, having a ball in the basement, that shines through in the best ways.

Every artist that was starting to break big as the pandemic hit wants a redo. A redemption opportunity. Not every band gets that chance. Hinds did, and the Madrid-based band is making the most of it with a world tour in support of their fourth album VIVA HINDS.

The garage rock foursome sports a retooled lineup. Ade Martin and Amber Grimbergen said adios in 2022, and mainstay guitarists Carlotta Cosials and Ana García Perrote were joined by Paula Ruiz (bass) and Maria Lázaro (drums) to make the magic happen on tour.

The crowd seemed primed to celebrate the band, their return to the States, a new album. Fans shouted “Viva!” at the stage, which is the one work you know if you don’t know Spanish. Conveniently, though, the title of the album is VIVA HINDS. So the band nimbly segued into a little crowd participation, inviting the room to shout “Hinds!” whenever the band shouted “Viva!”

And so it went for the next ninety minutes or so.

Spry rhythms, lively hooks, a whole lotta energy. The one thing you need to do as a garage band is cook. Cook a big meal with few ingredients. Hinds did just that, elevating the dish into fast casual fare for the masses.

Extra points for the “Fuck the Yankees!” jibe at the start of the set. Which is really no different than The Happy Return’s Laker-directed haterade. But damn if it didn’t sound infinitely more charming out of the mouth of a Spaniard. What can I say? The room had fallen in love with the accent, and so had I.

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