Remi Wolf Concert Review: Three Times the Fun

“Rule number one is I need you to scream every lyric as loud as you fucking can,” soul pop singer Remi Wolf demanded of Boston’s Roadrunner’s animated crowd at her Oct. 9 show.

Wolf’s already hit Boston a couple times this year as both a headlining act for her own tour in February and a supporting act for Lorde’s show in April. As such, she faced the prospect of a lethargic reception at her third performance in Boston. Anyone familiar with her work, however, need not worry about a lackluster performance.

“Rule number two is I need you to put your hands up, shake your fingers out, sexily bring them down our bodies,” she continued. “I need you guys to give yourselves the permission to have the best night of your lives.”

Indisputably entertaining and naturally charismatic, Wolf has mastered her energetic yet laissez-faire delivery in just under a year of touring. Originally released in 2021, with a deluxe version hot on its tails this past June, her debut album “Juno” transcends genre barriers as she pulls from indie pop, jazz, disco, and punk influences to formulate the unique sound that has propelled her to stardom.

Appropriately decked in an oversized Harvard T-shirt from The Harvard Bookstore and pajama pants, Wolf put the bedroom in bedroom pop, gallivanting across her whimsical stage design and weaving around massive flowers, a couch, a flowery tree, and various band members during her performance. Movement was the name of the game — she lept, danced, and cartwheeled her way to the tempo of the flashing lights and wasn’t stopping there. Tuned into the needs of her listeners, Wolf’s roaming even took her off stage to respond to an urgent call to action: a sign in the crowd that read, “Remi, sign my tits?”

Wolf donned an oversized Harvard T-shirt and pajama pants for her set. By Abigail A. Golden

Ever shameless, Wolf wasn’t afraid to indulge in the colorfulness of her lyrics. “How many of you go ‘Aw, fuck, I’m a little mean,’” she asked ahead of an impassioned performance of “Sexy Villain.” With her speech and giddy performance, she vitalized the crowd; “How many of you say to yourself, ‘Man, I am a cunty ass motherfucker?’”

In what is rapidly becoming a tour tradition, Wolf invited her drummer, Conor Malloy, to take over the vocals while Wolf relegated herself to playing drums. Malloy led fans in a call-and-response series of affirmations, which began with the financial wisdom “I will make my credit card payment” and culminated into an echo chamber of the self-confidence mantra “It’s a Dua Lipa summer! It’s a Dua Lipa fall! I am Dua Lipa!”

While Wolf certainly excelled in her crowd work, her musicality was where she truly shone. Her raw talent was bellied by a healthy self-awareness and vulnerability that facilitated her audience engagement. Monologuing before “Liquor Store,” the opening track from “Juno,” Wolf spoke about the uncertainty that stems from a “situationship where this person hasn’t replied to your text in, like, six hours, and you start to get a little — or a lot — anxious.” That anxiety propelled a dynamic performance and brought a new edge to the line “'Cause you like having sex like an animal / And I keep thinking you're running away from me.”

As she serenaded the audience with good energy, fans danced and laughed under strings of bubbles and psychedelic projections. While Remi Wolf is able to convey artistry and talent, her concert was made for fans to have genuine fun.

—Staff writer Abigail A. Golden can be reached at abigail.golden@thecrimson.com.