Shame at Music Hall of Williamsburg
photo by Ester Segretto

Shame wrapped up their tour in Brooklyn w/ Bodega & Public Practice (pics, setlist, review)

Shame wrapped up their North American tour with two shows at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg: Wednesday (10/3) with Flasher and Wives, and then Friday (10/5) with Bodega and Public Practice. Somehow the Friday show was my first time seeing the young UK band who have played NYC a bunch in the last year and a half. I know people who love them, and people who think they’re posing as punks and next in line of overhyped UK acts like Palma Violets, etc. Me, I liked them, and it’s hard not to be swayed when you’re seeing a full house singing along and going mental while the band does the same on stage.

Frontman Charlie Steen was not as crazy on stage as I’d been led to believe he was gonna be (he kept his pants on), though he was definitely working the crowd the whole time. He made an attempt to walk atop the crowd for main set closer “Gold Home,” but slipped and things turned into more of a crowd surf, but he never stopped singing. Bassist Josh Finerty, dressed like it was gym class, ran around the stage like a maniac for most of the show, literally bouncing off the walls at times and looking a little like Angus Young. While there are some punk aspects to them — the Stooges-y “Gold Home,” Steen’s thick South London accent — Shame are, to me, more like the early ’80s widescreen rock of Simple Minds or U2. (Obscure old person reference: some songs, like “Friction,” remind me of late ’90s UK act Campag Velocet.) They’re also heading more in that direction if the two new songs they played Friday night are any indication. (One of them, “Human for a Minute,” was very War-era U2.) It works for them — those are the my favorite moments on their debut LP — and they’ve got the big hooks and choruses to back up their live show which is clearly swinging for festival-sized fences.

Bodega have also come a long way since playing out SXSW showcase back in March. Near constant touring, including a few trips to the UK, has made them very confident and they too were really playing to the crowd on Friday. It helps to have a record as good as their debut, Endless Scroll, but they were definitely giving it their all and had a lot fans in the crowd.

For Public Practice, this was perhaps their highest-profile show to date. The new group which includes Samantha York and Vince McClelland of Wall as well as Beverly members Drew Citron and Scott Rosenthal, have been gigging locally a lot this year and have their debut EP out in a couple weeks. The band’s post-punk sound — pulling from Pylon, Talking Heads, Yellow Magic Orchestra and other groups — was a great start to the night.  York is a magnetic frontperson, the band is super solid and they’ve got a bunch of great songs already.

You can check out pictures from Friday’s MHOW show in the gallery above and Shame’s setlist and a few instagram videos are below.

SETLIST: Shame @ Music Hall of Williamsburg 10/5/2018
Dust on Trial
Concrete
One Rizla
Human, For a Minute
The Lick
Tasteless
(New song)
Friction
Angie
Lampoon
Gold Hole

Encore:
Donk

photos by Ester Segretto