“Welcome to DC!” The greeting came about 20 minutes into the Ratboys headlining set at Washington’s Atlantis on Monday night, and it caused frontwoman Julia Steiner to give a knowing laugh. Steiner had just announced that the quartet from Chicago would be recording a new album in February, and they were going to play a couple of brand-new songs. She prefaced the first – “The World So Madly” – by saying, “This is about watching terrible things on the news every night and then waking up the next day and moving on.”
“Welcome to DC!”
It may not be surprising, in the wake of an extremely polarizing election, that a bill featuring two opening acts comprised almost entirely of transgender and queer artists would get at least a little political. But Steiner, along with Palehound’s guitarist/vocalist El Kemper and youbet’s bassist Micah Prussack, kept their political opinions mostly in check.
Ratboys are just here to play some rock and roll
As Prussack explained, after asking the crowd how they thought the town would change in the wake of the election, “Well, we’re just here to play rock & roll, and we’re gonna keep doing that no matter what.”
The message was met with resounding cheers.
Watching three exciting, relatively young bands perform on a bill together in 2024 reminds us of a sad fact from the recent past. We will never know how much music was lost to the pandemic. Each of these bands, though at different stages of their careers, was on the cusp of something in 2020. Youbet had just released their small label debut and had a bunch of new songs ready to record. Palehound was a little further along, with several albums out, and Ratboys’ third album, Printer’s Devil, dropped literally as the world shut down in early 2020.
Fortunately, each band survived to play again, and each has released their strongest albums yet in the past couple of years.
The Ratboys opened their set focusing mostly on older tunes. “Space Blows,” from Happy Birthday, Ratboy was from their pandemic project, looking back and rerecording a number of the early songs. It led directly into one of their newest songs, “No Way,” a song that takes on added significance a week after the national election. The repeated chorus, “There’s no way you’ll control me again,” can be read in many ways, both personal and political.
“No Way” also showcases the stylistic complexity of Ratboys. Though still sometimes called “post country” (a label that Steiner has embraced), the band has been moving further from their twangy roots into more modern power pop that balances Steiner’s delicate vocals with co-founder Dave Sagan’s blistering guitar solos. “No Way” featured the first of Sagan’s many wild forays.
Calling Steiner’s vocals “delicate” should not detract from the toughness in both her singing and her songwriting. When it is called for, she can shout above the noise, often assisted by bassist Sean Neumann’s backing vocals. After an early favorite, “Elvis Is in the Freezer” (about a deceased pet, not a musician), Steiner announced those new songs. She told the crowd that the second one, “Burn It Down,” has taken on a different significance in her mind of late, before referring to the Democratic Party in words that I cannot repeat on a family website.
After moving through several older songs and several yet-to-be-recorded, Steiner launched into a five-song run from 2023’s The Window, which served as something of a breakout for the band. They approached the album backward, beginning with the softer “Bad Reaction,” which closes the album, before rolling right into the explosive album opener, “Making Noise for the Ones You Love," powered by Marcus Nuccio’s unstoppable drum attack.
Then, there were a couple of songs that most clearly defined the present of the band: “Morning Zoo” and “It’s Alive.” Both songs balance Steiner’s gorgeous pop sensibilities with Sagan’s heavy, propulsive, fuzzy guitar to create tunes that are hummable and head-banging in equal measure.
Steiner closed the middle section of the set with The Window’s title track, a lovely tribute to her grandfather, who she announced would soon be turning 95 and would be delighted by the recent victory of his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers over the hometown Washington Commanders. That elicited a few retorts from the crowd, which Steiner mollified by admitting that Commanders' quarterback Jayden Daniels is on her fantasy football team, and she loves him.
On with the rock & roll.
Ratboys played a few more older songs before closing with the total jam-out from The Window, “Black Earth, WI.” Sagan went wild for more than five minutes of electric guitar bliss, sending the sold-out crowd off on a high.
Brooklyn’s youbet opened the night with a half hour of songs from singer/guitarist Nick Llobet, which combine emo/shoegaze lyrics with a pounding bass and drum. Many of the songs are carried by Prussack’s bass, which allows Llobet to serve up little stabbing guitar runs throughout.
Prussack also does all the bantering with the audience, while Llobet, who has movie star good looks, stays somewhat withdrawn. Llobet has spoken openly about suffering from impostor syndrome in the past and there is a shyness that comes through in between songs. Fortunately, it is never present while the band is playing.
El Kempner, who fronts Palehound with aplomb, has no such problem with shyness. They are front and center both as a vocalist and as a killer guitar player. Palehound has added a second guitar on tour, allowing Kempner more room for their solos. That comes through loud and clear on “The Clutch,” one of the best songs from the band’s latest album, Eye on the Bat.
They also played “Independence Day” and “My Evil” from the new album, as well as “Good Sex,” Kempner’s wry tale of an awkward encounter which opens Eye on the Bat and their current live shows equally well. Kempner also went back in time, offering an austere and heartfelt “Your Boyfriend’s Gun” as a solo after letting the rest of the band take a little break.
The night was not without the occasional technical mishap. When the other members of Palehound returned to the stage, Kempner announced that they had inadvertently skipped over a song they were scheduled to play. During youbet’s set, Llobet had guitar issues, which caused the band to stop midway through and begin again. And at the end of one Ratboys' song, there was a noticeable hum left in the air. Steiner asked Sagan if it was because of something she had done, to which he said, "probably.” Then they just launched into the next song.
The same lineup returns to the Atlantis on Tuesday night for another show. Ratboys continues touring up and down the East Coast for the rest of the month, but Palehound will only be in support for a few more shows. Kempner told the crowd that next week they will be having gender-affirming surgery. There’s not much doubt Kempner and Palehound will be back as soon as possible. These three bands are all survivors. As youbet’s Prussack told the crowd early, they are just here to play some rock & roll.