Live Review: Worshipper, Roadsaw and Summoner in Massachusetts, 02.22.25
Before Show
The ride up here was a breeze. It’s been a while since last I set foot in the Bay State, but the route I took — rt. 287 to 95 to 91 to 84 to the Masspike — is one I’ve been driving since my wife was undergrad at Brandeis in Waltham. So not without some element of nostalgia for times I drove north in high school and college to see her, in snow, the middle of the night, whatever other stupid situation.
But driving four-plus hours to see three bands isn’t so crazy in this day and age, right? I don’t know. If it is gonna take me two hours each way to see a show in New York, is two more hours up the coast for Worshipper’s 10th anniversary really that wild? They’ve got Roadsaw and Summoner on the bill, I have a place to crash (thank you to John and Kerry Pegoraro for the hospitality), and I’m able to drive. Seems like kind of a no-brainer to make it happen if you can get up the gumption, which I’ll note that I haven’t been able to do in the six years since we moved from Massachusetts back to New Jersey. Obviously that’s on me.
Worshipper released their first single, Black Corridor/High Above the Clouds (review here), early in 2015. I don’t know the exact date, but when they announced a 10-year show, I realized it’d been too long anyway since I saw them, and with the company they’re keeping it was an easy choice.
Like a lot of breweries, Widowmaker’s setup can by design easily accommodate a rock and roll show, and for sure it got one. Plus it’s in Braintree (which I’ll forever here in the guy’s voice announcing the T stop). If brewery shows are how heavy rock happens in the suburbs, I’ll take it.
Here’s notes on the night:
Summoner
The last Summoner album, Beyond the Realm of Light (review here), came out in 2017. Why lead with that factoid, I don’t know, but I’m trying to give myself some sense of scale for time. They were an easy band to like at the time, and before that as well — it was their third album — and they were an easy band to like going on eight years after the fact. Funny to feel nostalgic as they hit into “Phoenix” at the start of the set, but there it is. I don’t know how much they’re up to, but they were always super-tight and a ton of fun besides. Whatever else the intervening years have wrought, their time on stage was enough to have me wondering what a circa-2025 album might sound like from these guys. Full-blown prog metal? Maybe, but they always had that underlying impulse to ride a riff when it worked, so I’m not sure I’d want to predict. I wouldn’t mind finding out, of course, but there was no mention of working on anything new or anything like that from the stage. I’m not holding my breath, but still, never say never, and as packed as the room was, clearly I wasn’t the only one who’d be up for such a thing. Good band. It would be cool to see them get credit for being as ahead is the heavyprog curve as they were.
Roadsaw
I think maybe it’s been 11 years since the last time I saw Roadsaw, which seems impossible, but the links don’t lie. Their 2019 album, Tinnitus the Night (review here), was kinda-maybe-sorta their swansong — or at very least I’m not expecting a follow-up anytime soon — retained their signature charm and songwriting, throwing somehow-friendly elbows, and so on. But that wasn’t the focus here. With Darryl Shepard on guitar alongside a largely mustacheless Tim Catz, Craig Riggs and Mike LeFevre their drummer whose name I don’t know, the set was centered around their earlier work. First three albums. They had CDs of Nationwide for sale and I bet they sold a few, since I own the record and was thinking of picking up a copy just on moral grounds because they were so much fun to watch. Darryl, of Kind. Milligram, Hackman, Blackwolfgoat, indeed Roadsaw, and I honestly don’t know how many others, is always a thrill to watch on stage, and Tim Catz remains a punker with classic heavy tone. His and Riggs’ energy, chemistry, was a familiar (if long ago) dynamic, and Riggs teased the prospect of doing more from the stage, so I’ll just for the announcement to come through that they’ve been added to Ripplefest Texas or some such. I wasn’t the only one feeling nostalgic — the older material made sure of that — but after 11 long years, to get to see them again was humbling. Let this be signs of life.
Worshipper
Happy 10th anniversary to Worshipper. This was my first time seeing the band as a three-piece, as they bid farewell to lead guitarist Alejandro Necochea right around the release of their third album, One Way Trip (review here), which to put it bluntly took some of the wind out of the sails of the band’s best work to-date. Worshipper were actually the band I’ve seen most recently in this show, and it’s been since 2019. I was glad to have come north before they were done playing songs from 2016’s Shadow Hymns (review here), their first LP and thus the beginning of their chronologically-arranged set. Widowmaker was packed out, and I can’t speak to the experience, but if I was in a band for a decade and we pulled like 200 on a Saturday night in our hometown, I feel like that would be pretty satisfying, and indeed, guitarist/vocalist John Brookhouse (who handled the solos), bassist Bob Maloney and drummer Dave Jarvis looked pretty stoked on how it all turned out. Me too. They didn’t make it easy on themselves in setting up the night to follow Roadsaw, but there was no doubt whose party is was when they got going and they held it down until the venue had to cut them off for time, losing out on some of the material from One Way Trip in the chronological running, but throwing in their take on Uriah Heep’s “Easy Livin'” as appeared on their 2018 Mirage Daze EP (review here) to finish with a blowout, and to be sure that worked just fine.
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Thank you to The Patient Mrs. for making this quick trip north possible. Thank you to John Pegoraro and Kerry Pegoraro for letting me crash at their house and do a little writing on their couch. And thanks to John Brookhouse for making sure I was okay bringing my camera through the door. I saw some old friends at this one, and that made the night even more special. More pics are after the jump, as usual.
Summoner
Roadsaw
Worshipper
