In Photos: Car Seat Headrest Rocks Out
By Hugo C. ChiassonWhile on their “The Scholars” tour, indie-rock darling Car Seat Headrest made a stop at Boston’s MGM Music Hall at Fenway on Sep. 27.
Before the show, audience members crowded the barricades, hoping for a chance to get close to Car Seat Headrest, carrying signs, flags, and pushies of a character from the band’s 2016 album “Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror).”
After a short public service announcement, the band kicked off their set with “CCF (I'm Gonna Stay With You).”
The band played with heavily saturated colors in their lighting — a choice that played well with the rock-opera narrative of their latest album, “The Scholars,” which accounted for most of the setlist.
Aside from the band — leader Will Toledo, guitarist Ethan Ives, drummer Andrew Katz, bassist Seth Dalby, and Ben Roth on synth — only large draped screen cloths onto which characters from the band’s latest album were projected took up the stage.
Throughout the performance, the crowd jumped along to the punchy guitar riffs, with some crowd-surfing to the front of the audience.
Ives played with persistent intensity, moving freely around the stage as the music demanded.
Toledo, who was diagnosed with histamine intolerance following a bout with Covid-19, sang through a mask. Yet at no point was his performance dampened, still expressing the raw emotion captured in the lyrics.
Throughout the set, the band lit Toledo with a single spotlight from behind, as if he were an angelic figure amidst the darkness of the rest of the stage.
Ives and Toledo traded verses throughout the night, playing their voices and their guitars off one another.
At some moments in the set, the sonic intensity exploded — paired with performances and light design to match. It was a fitting performance for the band, packed with emotion, but with enough space to breathe and take it all in.