Words by Willa Rudolph
The night, Sunday, August 10th, the venue, Night Club 101. I arrived at 8pm to see Gertie, Epoxy, and headliner Veronica at one of my favorite Manhattan venues. What a perfect way to curb the Sunday blues…
Gertie was having their first EVER show, after the disbanding of lead singer Brenna Sastram’s previous band, Moxie Pocket. I’d never seen them live but was a fan of their music so couldn’t wait to see what else Brenna was cooking up.
The four piece saddled up and vomited out a spray of punk, garage noise, and post-punk influenced alt-rock with chunks of riot grrrl–apologies for the gross visual metaphor. Anyway, for a first performance I was truly impressed. Two guitarists, vocals and drums–with no bass, I was curious how it’d add up but I forgot what we were missing almost instantly.
Guitarist number one was sickening, with furious energy, jumping, squirming, thrashing, and grinding all around the stage as the set progressed. Guitarist number two was a bit more calm, cool and collected, but equally as mesmerizing. The drummer kept the score and lead singer Brenna’s stage presence was undeniable. Putting the mic stand too low so she’d have to bend over and sing down into it, or dangling the mic above her face and singing up to it like she was in love or like it was a crystal ball that held her future, I was totally in their world with them.
NEXT was Epoxy. Epoxy is a post-hardcore three-piece formed by Alec Publicover (lead singer/guitar), Cashel O’Malley (bass), and Ben Leach (drums). When I tell you I was blown away, I WAS BLOWN AWAY! I’d never seen them live, either, and they looked British and buttoned up with the drummer lookin’ like some sort of backroads dude. Maybe it was his white beater and buzz cut in contrast to the others’ suits and ties. And maybe it was Alec’s and Cashel’s prominent sideburns that made them look British… 😛
But don’t get it twisted from the trio’s black suits and businessmen-like appearance–they went HARD—mind you, they looked businessmen who at been at the pub for more than a minute with the band spewing noisy, heavy punk rock with elements of screamo and emo. I was grateful I’d brought little ear plugs because they were LOUD, though there were times where they softened up a bit and reminded me of early Modest Mouse:
And other times, they served proper screamo bliss. I could barely stand still to record the following video.
Finally, ms. Headliner herself, Sofia Zarzuela, got up on stage with her band Veronica and had the whole room entranced for a millionth time. The lineup was Sofia (vox), Dylan Hamburger (guitar), Billy Hay (drums), and new member Kelsey Kussman (bassist)!
Contorting and writhing, using her dance training (Sofia had been at an intensive dance session for 8 hours that day) to hypnotize the crowd, her short set was worth the wait. The following video is the song “Blue Ribbon” (here’s the music video for that one, it’s super cute, and of course we wrote it up a while ago when her band was still self-titled).
They played two crowd favorites from their 2024 EP Rottweiler, followed by a rock cover of “Put Me In A Movie” by Lana Del Rey, and then ended with two NEW and UNRELEASED songs. Bathed in blue light, Sofia’s vocals penetrated the thick heat of the night and made us all feel the chill of her angst. In other words, she went full exorcist on our asses! I’m talking singing upside-down and everything.
Preceded by two super grungy and loud bands, it kind of put Veronica through that lens and made them rock that much harder, even though Sofia has such a pretty voice and sometimes plays with somewhat softer bands on the bill. She can certainly channel some ferocity in there though, don’t get me wrong.
Sofia tells The Deli, “We’re working on a second EP with Richard Orafino (producer, Sex Week) that I’m super excited about. The music is heavier but the themes are lighter—I’ve been exploring the idea of songwriting as a kind of spell and writing a lot about my relationship to music. I’ve also been studying dance pretty intensely and figuring out how I want to bring that into Veronica world.”
This song is “Tangerine” my favorite by Veronica so far:
All in all I HIGHLY recommend catching any or all of these bands live as soon as possible!!!! It was a super fun bill and show.
Here’s an upcoming live show where you can catch Veronica:
Friday, August 15th: Veronica at Mercury Lounge supporting Savoia (TICKETS)
Epoxy doesn’t have any live shows mentioned on their socials coming up, but stay up to date here!
Same with Gertie– stay tuned here!