Concert Review: Eighty Ninety Got A Message For You

 1975! Super City! LANY! “Boy-bands” that present themselves as a vivid group of guys struggling for love and dreams; treating songs like the names of their exes they carve on their bedroom wall or the hairs they pulled at losing out at an opportunity. Is that melodramatic? Yes. Is that pop? Yes. Is that the new single of Eight Ninety, “Got Your Message,” which was celebrated at Elsewhere? Yes. 

I have said it multiple times and prepare now for a repeat; when it comes to men in pop, they thrive by joining in or writing from the heartbreak of a female perspective or so we think.M en get their hearts broken too just not as much as ladies. The heartbreak stats are against them, but to hear songs like,  “10k Summer Nights” felt like someone opened a valve of freshwater. Suddenly, we we see that heartbreak is gender-less and a good pop song strips away the biology of pain to add bubblegum over it.  

Got Your Message

The “bubblegum” of Eighty- Ninety’s music is that they describe the woman they loved and lost like an angel torn from their side, and who wouldn’t want to be a wanted angel? On stage, the brothers Abner and Harper James have a “We are here” brightness to them; both transcending and managing the stage. Being, simultaneously aware and in awe of their Elsewhere crowd they were able to deliver a show that rafted in sound as if rhythm was a calm river; all you had to do was grab a float, a cold beer, shades, and you were riding through your feels.

Eighty Ninety – Dream (Official Video)

Abner James has “the harmless voice” that I have seen in Tessa Violet and Ethan Gruska. They feel so unmalicious which makes their emotions accessible even if their lyrics are simple. They are not trying to be Shakespeare in verse as virtue virtue; showing that you can mitigate feelings while motivating depth. In essence, the common-ground between an artist and an audience is not in shared philosophies as much as their  shared stories. Their crowd felt like 8090 had their experience and, in that, had their song. For More Information On Eighty Ninety Click Here.