Photos + Review: Pretty & Nice Open for Built to Spill at the Middle East Downstairs

Words by Jen Brown, Photos by Julian Furtak

Sunday night was the first time the local band Pretty & Nice rocked the stage of the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge. It was a smart lineup to be a part of, as the post-punk dance band was the opener for the the Swiss quartet Disco Doom and the renowned indie-rock heavyweights, Built to Spill.

Pretty & Nice just got back to Boston from a month-long West Coast tour with The Get Up Kids and Youth Group. The band played packed shows to hundreds of people in famous venues like San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium. Opening for Built to Spill on their home turf was a fitting follow-up.

Perhaps touring with The Get Up Kids gave Pretty & Nice a new spark; their set was full of confident energy and entertaining moments between band members. The band revealed their chemistry via on-stage goofiness that could have looked sloppy but instead added to their on-point performance.

The foursome opened the set with the trashing and angular "Piranha," after which the lead singer welcomed the full audience to the third and final night of Built to Spill. Pretty & Nice played songs off all three of their albums, including an old and fun track, "Busy Bees," which featured the two frontmen, Jeremy Medicino and Holden Lewis, singing the chorus in unison. Scattered with staccato strumming and a complicated instrumental break, "Busy Bees" proved to be a good add to the set.

"Grab Your Nets" was another high point of the set. The band's bassist, Roger Lussier, took turns between the bass and keyboard while the drummer, Jon Kovacs, dominated the end of the song with a hard-hitting lead into the last chorus. It was the best local show the band had played since adding the new bassist and drummer over the summer.

Next on stage was Disco Doom, a Swiss four-piece minimalist rock band led by frontwoman Gabriele De Mario. The Boston crowd was welcoming toward the band's loud, starry-rock sound covered in waves of distortion. The band didn't sound like its title... there were no disco keyboards or 70s dance breaks. Fuzzier with longer songs, their set was much different than the upbeat 30 minutes from Pretty & Nice.

Built to Spill fans rushed to the stage once the five musicians started their 14-track set. Audience members significantly varied in age; young faces squeezed together forming the front row while an older bearded man stood at the very back.

Doug Martsch's resonating and distinctive vocals were at once recognizable. The 16-year-old band known for its live concert jams wasted no time with on-stage banter and instead pushed out song by song, playing many tunes off their latest album, There Is No Enemy. It was the band's 1999 track however, "Carry the Zero," that caught the crowd in nostalgia, as audience members sang along and danced during the song's instrumental break.

Built to Spill gave the perfect salute to Pretty & Nice; guitarist Jim Roth wore the band's ampersand T-shirt--a hefty honor for the local band, who left Boston yesterday morning for their first European tour. The guys will be back in Boston for more shows in November, so if you haven't seen them live yet, be sure to catch them then.

Lots more photos of Pretty And Nice/Disco Doom/Built To Spill down below...