Preview: The, Nice Fest
Where do you start with a fest whose schedule runs four days with 70, 80, who knows how many acts? How about starting at the start and ending at the end? Nice, A Fest runs four days, from Thursday, July 25 to Sunday, July 28.
Get your tickets here.
Music fests are a place to discover new music. So go in completely blind and see some bands you’ve never heard before. Or disregard that advice entirely and preview below some acts we’re excited about at Hump Day News.
Life is about choices.
Sunday
Model/Actriz / House of Harm / Gift / Lucy (Cooper B. Handy)
Alex Walton / Animal Hospital / Cheem / Cherubhead / Corporeal / Joyer / Mercy Ruin / Misuser / Ribbon / Rougarou / Slow Quit / Summer Cult / The Collect Pond / The Rupert Selection / The Croaks / Vivid Bloom / Warmachine / Women In Peril / Zip-Tie Handcuffs
NICE /// 4-Day ScheduleSunday is the relative calm after the storm of Saturday’s three-stage, triple-headed monster lineup. But we’re still talking two stages and over 20 bands to close out the four-day Nice, A Fest.
Gone is the outdoor stage, as the focus of the fest recenters on the Crystal Ballroom and The Rockwell one-two punch.
If you acquired the four-day pass, you might be running on fumes by the final day. Gas up!
A lot of people are going to pick their spot for a one-day thing, and Sunday’s lineup is worth a daytrip for the one-off crowd.
Had your fill of the conventional rock trio or quartet, or just need a changeup? Throw yourself a curveball with the experimental setup of Animal Hospital (2:00, The Rockwell).
The solo act consists of a man and his machine; a machine that looks homemade with tender loving care and emits the most puzzling sound vibrations. It’s like a MIDI rebuilt only from parts available before 1968. The musician sometimes plugs a guitar into the machine, sometimes not. Consider it techno for ham radio enthusiasts.
Animal HospitalSticking with The Rockwell, you’ve got gems sprinkled all through the afternoon and evening, including Ribbon (4:15), Slow Quit (5:45), Mercy Ruin (6:30), Rougarou (7:15), and closer Zip-Tie Handcuffs (9:30).
All of the above have great releases to shout out, some of which are fairly recent. Ribbon put out an album called I Watched The Ribbon, which has the track count for an LP but the running time of an EP. More importantly, the music. A kind of ethereal indie folk meditation, elevated by a haunting cello throughout. Does the cello make the live gig? How could it not?
Slow Quit
Slow Quit and Mercy Ruin craft heavy pop with rock n roll textures. The former skews more towards psych and art-damaged post punk, which you can hear in the superlative self-titled EP Slow Quit. The latter adopts more of a emo-tinged, pop punk attack. They self-identify as darkwave goth pop, which might be more true of their full-length LP Worship than their demo Demonstration. Anyway, when we covered them at the Silhouette Lounge in January, it was a pretty dark room, so that’s pretty gothy.
Rougarou is a kind of acid-drenched, alt rock blunderbuss, who will pull out the banjo in the live show to capture that bayou flavor. A rougarou, by the way, is a werewolf from Cajun folklore. Watch out! Have a listen to the recently-recorded WMFO live set. And the closer? Zip-Tie Handcuffs are local garage rock maestros who just released a gorgeous looking vinyl edition of their recent LP Moss. Available in moss green, of course.
Turning our attention to the closing sets at Crystal Ballroom, the festival ends with a strong trio of Gift (7:45), House of Harm (8:45), and closer Model/Actriz (9:45).
Gift is one of those “local-ish” groups, which calls New York home these days, but doubtless has some sort of local connection. They play a sort of five-deep, krautrock-influenced, psych rock. They wowed us at last year’s Fuzzstival, and they have a new album called Illuminator coming out in August via Captured Tracks.
Gift
House of Harm are post punk Nice veterans who played the same stage at roughly the same time slot two years ago at Nice 2022 – except they get an extra 15 minutes for their 2024 set. That’s a 7.5 minute/year promotion. At that rate the band will play the whole four-day festival on its own with a single 46-hour set in the year 2207.
And experimental, noise-forward dance post punkers Model/Actriz get to say adios to the 2024 edition of Nice, A Fest with the closing set on the last stage of the last day. Time to start planning a five-day fest for 2025.
Shout out to all the artists playing Sunday at Nice, A Fest, including The Rupert Selection, Cherubhead, Women In Peril, Vivid Bloom, Misuser, Cheem, Corporeal, The Collect Pond, Joyer, Summer Cult, The Croaks, Warmachine, Lucy and more.
Take a look at Sunday of Nice, A Fest in Davis Square.