The New Colossus Music Festival 2024

New Colossus Music 2024 Festival (March 6 – March 10)

Let me start by saying that the work that Steven Matrick, Lio Kanine, Mike Bell and the rest of the New Colossus organizers and crew do in order to present this festival is beyond my imagination and that being said, immensely appreciated. Five days of virtually non-stop music from all over the world, presented in multiple venues that year after year manages to go off with almost no hitches what-so-ever. The 2024 version was the fifth New Colossus Festival and the second which I was able to cover in its entirety (that is, as much as one single person can catch). So, thank you to everyone involved (from promoters, artists, stage hands, barkeeps, servers, etc.) in this festival for making this weekend in March on the lower east side such an enjoyable fun filled experience.

After a good amount of planning, research and plotting of bands, times and locations my festival started out on Wednesday late afternoon at Pianos for Sugar For The Pill, Dresser and Flowers For The Dead who all put on enjoyable sets. Hailing from Athens, Greece, Sugar For The Pill particularly presented a really nice set of floating in the clouds dreamscape/shoegaze material. Following these three acts I headed on over to the newest of New Colossus’s venues, The Knitting Factory at Baker Falls. Housed in the same location as the old Pyramid Club, this might have been my favorite venue of the week. The space was ideal, the sound was pitch perfect and the lighting was spot on. Wednesday at Bakers Falls was the showcase presented by M For Montreal who has been presenting showcases at NCMF since the beginning. M For Montreal in its own right is a music festival held in Montreal each November to highlight bands from Canada. Their showcase each year at New Colossus is an extension of this. With a 6 band slate of acts, this is always a highlight of the New Colossus week. I missed the first band, Sasha Cay, on the itinerary but the next 5 acts (all of which were obviously from north of the border) provided me with a thoroughly enjoyable evening of rock entertainment. Of the five bands, I would make it a point throughout the week to revisit 3 of them (Housewife, Hippie Hourah and NOBRO), after witnessing their excellent sets Wednesday night at Baker Falls.

Which brings me to NOBRO. I came into this festival knowing full well that the other 150 or so bands on the lineup would be hard pressed to top what I expected from NOBRO. Low and behold, their set on Wednesday night (as well as Thursday and Friday) was a punk rock extravaganza for the ages. From the opening call and response from lead vocalist and bass player Kathryn McCaughey of N.O.B.R.O. right into “Where My Girls At”, it was clear that NOBRO had come to rock. Their brand of Ramones-esque power chord driven punk rock is truly infectious. With a clearly militant feminist bent, the band played with a ferocious intensity all three sets that I saw from them. But despite such angry and intense music itself, the four band members, Karolane Carbonneau on guitar and vocals, Lisandre Bourdages on keyboards, percussion and vocals, Sarah Dion on drums, vocals and bass along with the aforementioned McCaughey all appear to be having an absolute BLAST on stage. Eschewing the traditional scowls and snarled faces of punk, what we got for three straight nights was in your face hard driving pedal to the metal rock and roll delivered with a fun loving bent that was impossible to miss considering the smiles and laughter which were omnipresent throughout their sets. NOBRO to put it bluntly killed it all three times I caught them. SPOILER ALERT: When all was said and done, my pre fest prediction of their being the band to beat this year most definitely came to fruition and as expected NOBRO came out on top. That’s not to say that many of the bands I got to see last week weren’t fantastic…many were. But in my humble opinion, NOBRO just set the bar a little too out of everyone else’s reach.

Thursday night would be another great night of music for me. The weather which had been pretty miserable on Wednesday night cleared up enough so that it was way more conducive to venue hopping, something which New Colossus is made for. I would ultimately get to catch six bands at 5 different venues on Thursday night, three of which really stood out. One of those would be NOBRO which I won’t get into. The other two were coincidentally both from the UK. I originally had low expectations for Canned Pineapple mainly because of their band name, I mean its a terrible band moniker. But then they took the stage and it was like getting slugged over the head with a rubber mallet. Fronted by lead singer, songwriter, guitarist and chief hooligan, Sean Drury, Canned Pineapple were a tour de force. A 100% irreverent tour de force at that, and just like that the band name of Canned Pineapple made perfect sense. These British lads were completely absurd. They hammed it up and made no pretense that playing here in NYC for the first (and as Drury tongue in cheek stated, “probably the last”) time was going to be nothing but a barrel full of monkees. Hell they even brought along their very own gorilla across the pond for these shows. I know their press release calls their music skuzz rock but witnessing their set on Thursday night my first thought was manic pub rock. Yeah, pub rock like Brinsley Schwartz used to make, but at a breakneck pace. This brings me to frontman Sean Drury. With a mop-top of bleach blonde hair and thick horn rimmed glasses, your first impression might be a young Elvis Costello. A young Elvis without the anger and angst however. Drury, from the get-go was all about rock and roll party music. Then it hit me, Drury was the illegitimate spawn of Costello and Keith Moon. I mean this kid was crazed up on stage. At first I thought he might be drunk as a skunk but then I noticed the sharpie X’s on many of the band’s hands and I realized these kids more than likely weren’t even old enough to drink here in NY. Nonetheless, Drury and guitarist Gabriel Rice (with his Brian Jones haircut and Mick Jagger stature) were nonstop dervishes of energy. Belting out such hilarious songs as “She’s Got A Car”, “Why Don’t The Pretty Women Like Me”, “King Of The Monkeys” and “Shuba Dooba” to name a few had the crowd howling back at the band like we’d known these songs forever. These dudes were an absolute blast to watch and experience and I immediately knew I was going to have to juggle around my upcoming schedule in order to catch the rest of their sets in the coming days.

The other band from The UK which caught my attention on Thursday was Langkamer. Other than both being from England you’d be hard pressed to find any other similarities between these guys and Canned Pineapple. Langkamer, with their drummer Josh Jarman providing lead vocals, Langkamer clearly has listened and learned alot from Malkmus, Pavement, Silver Jews and all the other slack rockers of the 90’s and early 2000’s. I made a specific trip up to Heaven Can Wait especially to catch Langkamer and I was more than pleased with what I got to experience. Having formed as a band during the pandemic lockdown, Langkamer have only recently gotten their sea legs as far as playing together live is concerned. But with a dueling guitar attack coming from guitarists Ed Soles and Dan Anthony (both of whom take turns playing some slide), the band takes their slacker roots in a very southern direction, harkening back to the second wave of southern rock like Skynrd, Marshall Tucker and The Outlaws. Probably my favorite track from them was the bouncy hook heavy “Ritual” which starts off with a rollicking bass line beat very reminiscent of Orleans’ mid 70’s hit “Still The One”. And yet again, future plans for the weekend would have to be juggled in order to catch these guys at least one more time.

Friday would prove to be, as is the usual case, a LONG day. With sets starting as early as noon and running all day and night, it would prove to be a true marathon. Fortunately for me, one of my most anticipated bands of the week was playing early in the day while I would still be fresh. Vera Ellen, hailing from New Zealand made their Stateside debut on Friday at Berlin. Being as they’re from New Zealand, of course the band is signed to none other than Flying Nun Records and they fit in quite nicely with the stable of acts who we’ve grown to know and love from those fine folks over the years. Vera has a distinct singing style which immediately brings to mind earlier Courtney Barnett. But musically, the band is much poppier and synth driven so that’s where the similarities to CB end. Vera apologized midway through their set on Friday saying that unfortunately (for unmentioned reasons) the band only had 4 of the normal 6 members with them on this U.S. swing. As such each of the members often had to work double duties which they didn’t usually have to do. While the lack of the extra 2 band members did induce a somewhat thinner sound, I do have to say that Vera Ellen’s set was everything I’d hoped for and have no doubt they would generate some well deserved buzz down in Austin at SXSW this week.

After a couple of more bands at Berlin, I would make my way over to Pianos Showroom to catch Paper Lady, a dream pop outfit coming out of Boston. Fronted by guitarist, vocalist and principal songwriter, Alli Raina, this five piece band met when they were all students at Berklee School of Music. Anyway, the group offered up a lush dreamscape of swirling atmospheric psychedelic folk music which was both thought provoking as well as soothing and relaxing. Were they the kind of band you’d go to see for a night of dancing and/or head banging? Hell no. But if your thing is to sit back and chill while listening to some sweet sultry grooves, by all means Paper Lady should be checked out.

After doing a good amount of additional bouncing around town during the afternoon, I would start my evening off with local artist Phantom Wave over at Heaven Can Wait. I hadn’t planned on catching PW but I had the time slot available due to a band cancellation so there I was. I will admit that when attempting to map out my plans for the Festival I normally opt not to see local bands with the thought that I have an opportunity to see them around and about anytime. Admittedly, this is a flawed concept as there are local bands I do not know and thus would not think about seeing throughout the year. Phantom Wave proved this point quite emphatically. I’d vaguely heard OF them but was not at all familiar with them at all. They ended up playing a strong, albeit dark set of spiraling guitar heavy shoegaze to what was unfortunately a very sparse yet enthusiastic crowd. Clearly using the wizardry of today’s layering and looping technology, PW manages to push forward a much heavier, robust and fuller sound completely entrenched in reverb and echo that lends itself to the feel of a much larger group than a mere trio. The bottom line is Phantom Wave will be a band I look out for in the local Brooklyn scene going forward.

I would close out my Friday evening with the back to back, one two punch of the aforementioned Canned Pineapple and NOBRO playing at Piano’s Showroom. Needless to say, the evening went out with a BANG!

I will be the first to admit that waking up on Saturday morning, I was totally spent. Despite this and some more wet weather, I dragged myself into lower Manhattan to catch the 1 PM set at Arlene’s Grocery from Crystal Canyon only to find out that they had canceled. At this point I do have to say that unlike last year, I did find that there were more band cancellations this year. This might have been merely anecdotal in that this year bands that I had penciled in to see were the culprits and there might have been just as many last year that I didn’t notice. But this might be the only issue I can think of in terms of this year’s festival and I totally understand that these cancellations are completely beyond the control of the organizers, so clearly they bear no brunt of responsibility. Actually, they should be commended for being able to fill all of the empty time slots so that there was never any dead space on any of the stages.

I ended up taking a leisurely walk up to Baker Falls to catch the end of National Honor Society’s set which was taking place just before the 3rd and final appearance of the weekend from Canned Pineapple. I was curious how playing so early in the day would affect the band and their madcap antics. Yes, they were a little more subdued than their previous night time sets, but by no means did the time slot temper all of their excitement. Once again, the boys from Brighton delivered the funtime rock and roll goods.

My afternoon on Saturday would go on to be highlighted by a powerfully brooding set from Berliner by way of South Africa Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys. I would also get a second chance to enjoy Langkamer, this time at Pianos Upstairs which was a much more enjoyable room to witness these guys. Upstairs at Piano’s with its windows overlooking Ludlow Street and cushioned booths surrounding the “stage” area presents an almost living room kind of ambience to the shows which took place there. This atmosphere was a perfect setting for Langkamer who were even better than on Thursday when I’d seen at Heaven Can Wait.

One of my biggest surprises as well as highlights of my week was the band Prewn from Western MA. I knew nothing about the band which is actually the stage moniker for Izzy Hagerup who put Prewn together as a post covid project. Prewn released its recorded debut last summer and even if I had listened to the LP prior to seeing the band on Saturday, I would not have been prepared for what lay in store. Izzy would proceed to present a set of extremely dark, at times disturbingly so guitar laden psychedelic indie pop. On the album Izzy’s vocal intonations come across as a dark gothic version of a band out of Muscle Shoals, AL from the early teens, The Bear. Live, however, she takes that sound and adds a little bit of Florence Welch to it and as such, combined with the heavy guitar brought way up front in the mix, we in the audience were treated to what was a mesmerizing dichotomy of beauty and disturbing. Prewn’s set was probably the most achingly powerful thing I witnessed all weekend.

I would close out my Saturday with Ducks LTD, a jangly power pop kind of band out of Canada which I’ve been longing to catch for quite some time now but largely due to their being booked to play VERY late sets here in New York whenever they come around, I’ve missed. So seeing that they were playing a few sets at this year’s New Colossus brought a huge smile to this guy’s face. Ducks would prove not to disappoint at all. Ironically, with a new album, Harm’s Way having just been released, they opened up with “How Lonely Are You” and “Old Times” off of their previous album, Modern Fiction from 2021. Truth be told it wouldn’t be until the 5th song of their set before they would get to anything from the new album. None of which mattered to the ecstatic crowd which were eating up every crunchy note put forth from The Ducks. Enigmatic lead singer, Evan Lewis proves to be a great frontman with his energetic shimmying and unique nasally voice. Of course what would a classic power pop band be without pitch perfect harmonies and Lewis along with partner in crime Tom McGreevy delivered in spades. All in all their set proved to be a master class in the crunchy jangly power pop craft.

And then there was Sunday. Yeah, I passed on the Saturday evening festivities due to this old man just being plum exhausted. Yes that meant I missed the second set of the day from Ducks LTD but I knew I’d be catching them again on Sunday afternoon AND as it turns out they would announce a new show coming up in June with fellow jangle pop buds, Kiwi Jr., so all was good in the world.

I started my last day of the festival off with Starcleaner Reunion, a local New York City band I was particularly stoked to check out. I do believe that the early Sunday set time coupled with the change over to daylight savings time might have affected the energy level of both the band as well as the crowd, but nonetheless their set was quite enjoyable, especially the bubbly pop charmer, “Ribbon Le Choi”.

Following Starcleaner I would get a reprise performance from Housewife who I had seen back on Wednesday afternoon (what felt like months ago). Toronto’s Brighid Fry, the mastermind behind Housewife along with their partner in crime Pascale Padilla offered up a great set of pop heavy indie tunes which totally dusted the cobwebs off of the crowd’s dance shoes.

Diary would prove to be my only repeat band from last year’s festival. Another local Brooklyn band, they’ve progressed quite a bit from last year with lead singer Kevin Bendis having grown into a much more confident and likable presence on stage. Furthermore the guitar interplay between Chris Croarkin and Jessica Dye has grown much more complex but still manages to avoid being too showy. Ducks LTD would follow Diary and once again I would find their set to be pure power pop bliss. As an added bonus it appeared that they purposely mixed up their setlist quite a bit to appease their stalwart and loyal fans who were seeing them for the third time in the weekend.

Closing out my festivities for the weekend would be Brooklyn’s King Bug. Not at all familiar with their oeuvre despite being local, the band transfixed the jam-packed Piano Showroom with an explosion of sludgy guitar heavy blend of shoegaze noise. The quintet put forth a sonic assault that would have made MBV proud.

And just like that my five days of almost non stop live music came to an end. Over the course of the 5 day festival run, I managed to catch a total of 56 sets of music on 8 separate stages. A grand total of 50 different bands from 9 different countries. I managed to see roughly a third of the acts which came to play New Colossus. Needless to say that at the conclusion of my extended weekend, this guy was pretty much wiped out but in a most satisfying way that’s for sure. Again, I can not thank everyone involved enough for the amazing job they all did to put on this extravaganza. New Colossus isn’t South By but it sure as hell does a great job of being New Colossus. Like Emma Lazrus wrote in her famous poem to which this festival is named after: